As much as I loved the first 100 pages of
The American Way Of Eating by Tracie McMillan I enjoyed the following 100 pages even more. It was extremely interesting to get the inside scoop on what goes on in Walmart. Even more interesting was the fact that this Walmart was in the Kalamazoo area! I also found it cool the this is where Tracie's sister was living at the time as well. I never realized that their are so many steps and training that is mandatory before you can actually become an employee. For example, Tracie discusses she has to watch Produce operations in which she learns that :produce is a living commodity rapidly approaching demise, and the produce section is nothing less than an expansive life-supporting system." (pg 145) Tracie then watches food safety 1 and
food safety 2 which included preparing and handling the food. The last video she has to watch is food safety and handling. I am happy to see that stores such as Walmart have their employees do this training. However, how do we know that the steps in the training video are always followed?
I'm sure if their was an easier and less time consuming way of preparing or stocking the produce some employees might take the easy way out.
One thing I found very disturbing was how much
food waste Walmart has. We have so many starving people in the world, but yet we waste so much food. In one of the side notes in this book it states that at another small chain store averaged
800 pounds of food they threw away a day! That is just mind blowing to me that we can just throw all that food away. I don't understand why more of this food can't go to local homeless shelters. To be continued....
800 pounds just thrown away? I knew there was products being shipped to the dumpster, but never this much! This is just...wrong. Did she mention anything about the food being expired/bad? That would be better, I suppose. But then we have the issue of the stores letting the unpopular items going to such a waste...
ReplyDeleteAnd the food paradox continues!
Casey, I have the same reaction as you -- 800 pounds?! I'm sure there is some way they are able to waste less / do something (such as donate) etc...
DeleteWhen you talk about Walmart and all the food that they waste I find that to be so interesting since I know so many people who go there to get food. If there was a way to monitor the food that is being purchased from such large companies like Walmart I think it would be helpful to prevent all that food from being wasted, since like you said so many people around the world are starving. I am just now sure how you would be able to monitor that very well and have it be accurate.
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe that they waste 800 pounds of food a day! Like the others commenting said, there are so many better things theycould be doing to not waste this food. That is just appalling that they just waste that much food.
ReplyDeleteIts nice to hear that places such as Walmart put their employees through the proper training when it comes to the handling of food.
ReplyDeleteI would have to agree with you that there are so many homeless and starving people in the world. And for that much food to be thrown away, it is such a waste. That food could be given to the homeless shelters. Something should be done about that because it doesn't put me at ease knowing that.
ReplyDelete