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Link to the video and my comment promoting the wiki, if people want to upvote
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFShfj8Phf4&lc=UgwtQKYLwhlSMtVMza54AaABAg
When vegans eat meat (freeganism, Edwins Generation)
Thoughts on two recent videos from Edwins Generation: "I'm Vegan, But I Could Eat Meat" and "Vegan Responds To Criticism From Vegans".
Survey for vegan youtubers (#6 has to do with freeganism/in-vitro meat)
http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&p=35470
Transcript:
So YouTuber Edwins Generation, he recently published this video called; "I'm vegan, but I could eat meat," where he talks about his recent personal experience eating some chicken that was going to be thrown away, he didn't want it to go to waste so he ate it and I agree that this was a good thing to do.
This is basically freeganism, I've talked about that a few times on this channel, I did a whole two part series on food waste, the second part of which specifically deals with freeganism. I also talked about it quite a bit in my response to Gary Francione several months ago, earlier this year I think.
Whilst I don't personally dumpster-dive, or anything like that, I have ordered something that ended up having animal products on it and then just ate it anyway because again I didn't want to waste it.
I think the last time that happened spent a long time like a few years ago my brother and I went to Taco Bell, I remember and I ordered a burrito, no cheese, it had cheese on it, you know you pick off what you can, but it's kind of like in there right, so whatever I ate the cheese, it was fine.
And then I think another time before that I was at this little, this little lettuce place it was called lettuce eat ha ha ha, they're close uh, of course "let us eat," I ordered a salad, with it was supposed to be tofu, but I guess they they kind of look similar, tofu and feta cheese, so there was feta cheese, gross, that was not something I ever ate even before I was vegan but I ate it anyway, again the damage was done, there was no point in letting the food go to waste.
Anyway Edwin then made a follow-up video to his first video just going through some of the negative comments that he got from some vegans from some fellow vegans and there are some interesting parts of that video that i would like to talk about, so here we go:
Got it quite a few comments telling me that hey make up your own name but don't you can't sit with us another joke ok don't take it seriously if i were to say something like i'm a frigate aryan or something a stranger a family member a friend would not get it at all they would i would have to start explaining it would be so confusing it would be so much more pain in the butt but when I say I'm vegan a lot of people get it so this actually makes some sense to me this this might be true you know I've had conversations with people who they knew what vegan was but they only knew it to mean you don't eat meat dairy eggs like you don't eat animal products right so then you know if I said something like oh I support in-vitro meat right you know I I think in vitro meat is great and is vegan they're shocked it's like what how can that but it's neat that's how can it be vegan it can't be vegan in any context right and so then I'd have to talk about the definition of vegan and exploitation and you know the difference between you know ethical and dietary veganism and I don't I don't think it helped like much at all like it's I think they thought that I was I was trying to get out of something right like I was trying to just make an excuse for eating animal products my point is is that I can see the same sort of thing happening with freakin ISM just just people not understanding it again because they have this kind of diet definition of veganism not understanding the ethics behind it not understanding the economics behind at all not understanding that the issue isn't really with eating the meat but with supporting the production of that meat right not understanding that there's a huge difference between eating some chicken that's gonna go in the trash and like purchasing that chicken yourself or having someone else purchase it for you and I can kind of see this backfiring and like a personal situation like you tell a family member or something that your freegan and they're like oh I get it and they take it to mean that like okay you won't buy animal products but I can buy animal products for you right and then like buying you some eggs or something I'm not saying that this is definitely gonna happen or that I've heard of this happening or anything like that I can just I can imagine that happening and I'm not saying that freegans should like hide being freegan or just everyone you know if you're freaking just say you're vegan to make it easier or anything like that I think it's important that this has talked about with people including with non vegans but I do think it depends on the the context and personal preference so you know I don't see any problem with a freakin just saying yeah I'm vegan just to make things easier right I think it just depends you know if you're in a situation where you're talking with someone who you know obviously doesn't really want to talk about it or is being defensive or is asking questions in like a an aggressive way I'm sure all of you have experienced that before then yeah it's probably easier to just say like yeah I'm vegans be done with it right but if someone is like questioning and really wants to know then that might be a good opportunity to actually talk about it and try to like explain the ethics and the economics behind it but but again it depends on the person depends on the situation I remember what what chicken wings tasted like when I when I enjoyed it and I taste it again and it still tasted good like to meet tastebuds just don't go away like if I enjoyed something two weeks ago and I taste it again it still is gonna taste similar to me I don't understand how vegans have this mentality that it's like ah I saw the torture so what no Lenore tastes good like I'm sorry look I I understand it I've seen the videos and everything but it still tastes good so this obviously depends on the person too you know there are some vegans who say even like short term vegans vegans who haven't even been vegan that long who are like yeah I don't miss animal products at all you know there's just that really intense that yuck factor there it's usually like this moral disgust they're just they cannot see the chicken breast without thinking of the the chicken suffering right but then there are other vegans who just they don't have that sort of thing and they really do like still like a products they can imagine eating a hamburger or whatever and it's like yeah that would probably be delicious or even like longing for these products I've read comments from longtime vegans who are like yeah I still think about certain foods yeah like I miss those foods I wish I could eat those foods it's like smoking you know some smokers it's like they never think about smoking anymore but then there are others who haven't smoked in years and it's like yeah I still think about lighting up multiple times a day for me there there are definitely certain animal products that I'm pretty sure I would still like like hot dogs and the chicken nuggets McDonald's chicken nuggets it's like all the processed stuff I've said before like that's you know I was never big on like the t-bone steak in like chicken breasts and stuff like stuff that had like that wasn't uniform right it wasn't processed so there's like gristle and cartilage oh god like if I got any of that it's like nope can't eat anymore that's disgusting so I always gravitated towards the like the taco meat you know the ground beef the stuff that was more uniform and I didn't have to worry about bone or anything else yeah I mean look I'm I'm pretty sure if I ate some deviled ham with saltines today I probably liked it but again a steak chicken breast a drumstick I don't I don't think I could handle that not only again because I didn't really like these foods before but they're so close to the animal for me now I don't think I could disassociate it I don't I don't think I could see it as anything more than like where it came from whereas deviled ham and hot dogs are like barely even food but either way does this even matter I mean should we really be shaming people who are willing to admit that like yeah certain animal products still sound good to me or like yeah I actually miss eating those foods I mean isn't the important thing that these people are vegan I feel like we need to acknowledge that there is some sacrifices to be made you know like just because it tastes good doesn't mean we need it like we don't require a real chicken wing we have that little substitute if anything I think these people should be praised right like they're the ones we should be saying like hell yeah good job people who find it easy to 98 animals and to be vegan like I'm not making any sort of sacrifice but people who are like yeah I miss those foods but they still say no and they still stay vegan that's awesome vegans don't eat meat because they are fundamentally against exploitation and cruelty towards animals the problem with your scenario is that even if you're not buying it yourself you're still eating animal flesh and viewing animals as products which they are not so this is a critique of freeganism that I've seen a lot this idea that eating the chicken that's just gonna be thrown in the trash or wearing leather that you got you know before you went vegan that this is like a kind of slippery slope back to exploiting animals right because you're still viewing the animals as products that could actually be true you know I could see how someone who is free an or trying to be freegan may they could try to justify other you know not freakin forms of eating me you know maybe they can't find the freakin options and they really want meat so maybe just this once they end up purchasing some meat instead but this should not be used to justify fear-mongering against freeganism against dumpster-diving it does not contribute to animal exploitation and it's a viable option for some people there's also the concern that doing this that again for example you know eating the chicken that's gonna be thrown in the trash or wearing leather that you already had that doing this could or definitely will depends on who's talking I guess we'll you know contribute to exploitation by others by other people because you are sending the message that you know animals are products and so you are encouraging people to exploit animals to the extent that anybody sees you eat them you certainly are increasing demand because you're reinforcing the idea that animal foods are things to eat and that is going to increase the man because you're sending a message out and that it that message is consistent with the overall species this message that leads to our exploiting non-human animals but as I've asked before including in my response to that video from Gary France Ian do we have any evidence for this you know I see this claim being made a lot and it's very authoritative you know vegans are saying this as if it's been proven this is a fact you know this idea that eating the chicken that's going to be thrown in the trash or wearing the old leather or you know eating eggs from a rescued backyard hen or dumpster diving that these sorts of practices are definitely 100 percent contributing or going to contribute to animal exploitation where is the evidence and to those of you who still eat meat like serious question if you saw someone dumpster diving and like pulling meat out of a dumpster is that really appetizing like does that really make you like want to eat meat does that feel like I don't know like it's reinforcing eating meat for you I feel like if I still ate me and I saw that it would have the opposite effect it's perfectly possible that be freegan for instance that this actually helps veganism and actually helps to end exploitation I mean maybe the fact that people are being freaking and talking about it with non vegans it actually helps to show that veganism isn't all about you know purity and dogma that people don't just care about the label or they don't just want to be part of a group that we really just want to do better we want to make the world a better place via our actions I'm willing to bet that seeing veganism this way instead of as some elitist Club is far more likely to encourage people to take a look at their own purchasing habits.
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*References*
Edwin's videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKjBlW4yaxg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L65_MEtq6J8
My foodwaste/freegan series
https://youtu.be/PEP0A93pYIk
https://youtu.be/ZzH6UEOz2Bs
My response to Gary Francione
https://youtu.be/zVKLzhQFdGE
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More videos:
https://activistjourneys.wordpress.com/freeganism/
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Food Waste & Freeganism (Part 2: What is a freegan and why does it matter?)
https://youtu.be/ZzH6UEOz2Bs
Published on Sep 1, 2016
As I and others have said, vegan is not the moral baseline. There’s always more that we can do (or stop doing) to make the world a better place. I've talked about agricultural efficiency a bit in the past, but another major issue in our food supply (and one that we can do a lot about) is waste.
Part 1 on food waste:
https://youtu.be/PEP0A93pYIk
Freeganism in a nutshell -
https://youtu.be/ZzH6UEOz2Bs?t=23s
Fake freegans -
https://youtu.be/ZzH6UEOz2Bs?t=3m1s
An intermediate to freeganism -
https://youtu.be/ZzH6UEOz2Bs?t=4m5s
Conclusion: 4 tips for avoiding waste -
https://youtu.be/ZzH6UEOz2Bs?t=5m27s
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Hey guys, this is part two of my 2 part series talking about food waste and now freeganism. So if you want to see the one on food waste you can check that out right here [1] and then come back and watch this one or don't.
Freeganism in a nutshell
-
https://youtu.be/ZzH6UEOz2Bs?t=23s
Freegans are rescuers of sorts, only instead of rescuing people or animals they rescue food from being wasted, they get it from dumpsters, dumpster diving, often dumpsters behind grocery stores or bakeries, frequently still in the package and they eat that instead of buying food.
Given the harmfulness of food waste in terms of the environment that I talked about in the last video, this rather strange lifestyle freeganism is really commendable, it may even be morally superior to veganism in terms of immediate consequences on the world that we live in. As long as freegans aren't like cutting locks and vandalizing private property.
There's also no denying that such a lifestyle, freeganism, is less socially sustainable, obviously not everyone can live on waste so we do need vegan food products made for the market and people willing to buy them.
Freeganism is not an example that we can all follow, but it is something that some of the more adventurous of us can try, it also may be a good recommendation for people who are not quite ready to give up meat, obviously assuming they are willing to dig through garbage to get their fix which I'm willing to bet they're not.
*If dumpster diving, please be safe. Never choose rotten food and always wash and cook anything you do choose thoroughly before eating.
Speaking of meat, some freegans specifically ‘Meagans,’ those Freegans who are willing to eat freegan meat, they get a lot of hate in the vegan community, they're called fake vegans because they're eating meat, but again given the impact of waste on the environment, again check out part one, is this at all merited?
Again freegans are not buying the meat, they are not contributing in any way to demand, they are not stealing it off the shelves or buying it off the shelves, they are getting it from the dumpster, saving it from landfills, the grocery store is not going to replace this by buying more.
More animals are not being bred to suffer and die for the Meagan's meat:
“. . .some people will not give up eating meat. If freegans tell them there is a way that they can continue consuming animal products without economically supporting factory farming, they just might go for it.
Of course, it’s a good idea to keep educating on the benefits of healthy and ethical eating, because we don’t want a situation where, when less meat is available from the dumpsters, people go back to buying it from stores.
And many people won’t go freegan, but WILL go vegan. Through a combination of freegan and vegan outreach strategies, animal rights and social justice activists can hit the industry from several directions at once.”
Fake freegans
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https://youtu.be/ZzH6UEOz2Bs?t=3m1s
Unfortunately not all freegans do it right, there are freegans who steal food, which the store does replace, there are also freegans who get their friends and families to buy food for them, that is not freeganism.
The concept is not rocket science, but it seems that people really don't understand the difference between food that had to be replaced because you stole it or food that someone else would have eaten, so food you know like at a food bank or at a party or something and food that was legitimately going to be wasted, so food off of a vacated table at like a mall food court or again straight from a dumpster or trash can.
I think it's human bias and a very deep desire to eat things, certain things, certain animal products and whatnot that keeps people from thinking clearly and it makes it more difficult for people new to freeganism to figure out actually how to do it correctly.
So if you are going to go freegan, or meagan or whatever, again that's great, just please be mindful that you are doing it correctly.
An intermediate to freeganism
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https://youtu.be/ZzH6UEOz2Bs?t=4m5s
There is something between freeganism at the one end and buying only the freshest products at the other, something that it's fairly easy to do that will reduce waste, that doesn't require you to dumpster dive or creepily hang around food courts waiting for people to leave something even slightly edible behind on their table, I don't know, is that how freeganism works, I'm not a freegan, but that's the image that I get in my head, it doesn't sound very pleasant, anyway the tip is, don't buy the freshest produce.
Obviously I'm not suggesting to buy rotten or mouldy food, please do not do that, but you know pick things that are slightly bruised or maybe a little bit old or just ugly, things that people are very likely not going to buy, this will keep the store from throwing them out, you may even be able to get a discount on these items, be sure to talk to your produce manager to see.
Some stores like Kroger, they even have a little section where they have the less pretty, little bit older stuff for sale and that's really cool it's a practice that we should really try to reward, the same goes for packaged products as well.
Bread is a really good example, instead of doing what most of us to which is sifting through the bread trying to find the one with the latest sale by date, go for the one with the soonest sale by date, the one that most people are not going to buy.
Conclusion: 4 tips for avoiding waste
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https://youtu.be/ZzH6UEOz2Bs?t=5m27s
And now to summarize all of the tips from the last video and this one:
To avoid waste:
#1: Focus on staple foods (dry beans, nuts, whole grains, etc.)
So number one, eat mainly efficient, non-perishable staples like dry beans and whole grain products that you can prepare and eat within a couple of days. This virtually eliminates retail waste and waste during long-term storage in your kitchen number.
#2: For perishables, plan ahead and store correctly.
Number two, for prepared dishes and perishables like produce, buy or make only what you can eat before it goes bad, store carefully and keep of them eating leftovers and surveying your produce regularly and eating things before they go bad.
#3: For perishables, buy reduced for quick sale items.
Number three, when you do shop for produce and other perishables, try to buy the reduced for quick sell stuff and eat or prepare them quickly and remember that thorough cooking it usually sterilizes the food and resets the clock so to speak for spoilage, this can also be useful if you want to keep something longer.
#4: Seek out ugly, bruised produce that people are less willing to buy and packaged food closer to its sell-by date.
Number four, if you cannot find quick sell items and are planning to prepare and eat the food soon, try to overcome the compulsion for freshness and buy something a little older, bruised or closer to its sell-by date, rather than as far away as possible. This helps reduce waste in the store, since many other consumers will avoid these products and they might have gone to waste. This is not freeganism obviously, but it is a middle ground and every little bit can help.
So that's it, thank you so much, I really hope you enjoyed this video if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below, if you are freegan I would love to hear from you, that would be really cool, so please leave your comments below, any kind of experiences you have or maybe something that I got wrong, that'd be cool and if you want to subscribe, subscribe and thanks again, I will have a new video [shrugs].
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*References*
Part 1 on food waste:
https://youtu.be/PEP0A93pYIk
Meaganism and the End of Animal Agriculture:
https://freegan.info/what-is-a-freegan/freegan-philosophy/freeganism-and-animal-rights/meaganism-as-a-strategy-for-dismantling-animal-agriculture/
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Why wasting food is so bad & simple ways to avoid it (UV video)
As I and others have said, vegan is not the moral baseline. There’s always more that we can do (or stop doing) to make the world a better place. I've talked about agricultural efficiency a bit in the past, but another major issue in our food supply (and one that we can do a lot about) is waste.
Part 2 on freeganism:
https://youtu.be/ZzH6UEOz2Bs
0:37 - Magnitude of waste
2:01 - Why waste is so bad
4:05 - Avoiding waste at home
5:12 - What to do about inevitable waste
6:06 - Waste in retail
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References
1. 2014 USDA report
https://www.ers.usda.gov/media/1282296/eib121.pdf
2. Go West, Garbage Can! (Are we running out of room for our garbage?)
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2011/02/go_west_garbage_can.html
3. Greenhouse Gas Emissions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production#Greenhouse_gas_emissions
4. Reducing wasted food at home (EPA)
https://www.epa.gov/recycle/reducing-wasted-food-home
5. Composting at home (EPA)
https://www.epa.gov/recycle/composting-home
Hey guys. As I and many other vegans have said, vegan is not the moral baseline, there is so much more that we can do or stop doing to make the world a better place, kind of cheesy, but whatever, it's true.
I’ve talked about agricultural efficiency a little bit, I talked about it here with the whole lettuce - bacon thing and the supposed vegans who eat nothing but lettuce and how terrible these supposed vegans are you know for the environment compared to people who eat bacon, it's really stupid.
But there is another major issue in terms of our food supply, something that we actually can do a lot about and that is waste.
Magnitude of waste
https://youtu.be/PEP0A93pYIk?t=37s%7C
I talked about this a little bit in my new year's resolution video from this year about how I wanted to work on reducing waste by you know checking the fridge more often, being careful with fruits and vegetables that I buy, you know fruit that's left out, making sure to cull it you know regularly to make sure that things aren't going bad, to eat them before they do, um I think this hasn't been perfect, the year hasn’t been perfect, things still go sometimes and of course pregnancy and food aversions and whatnot haven't really helped that at all.
But I have made you know little changes, particularly with regard to like things that I buy, purchasing habits to kind of avoid certain foods that spoil easily; it's a serious problem, since almost a third of all food is wasted at the retail and home level:
In the United States, 31 percent—or 133 billion pounds—of the 430 billion pounds of the available food supply at the retail and consumer levels in 2010 went uneaten. Retail-level losses represented 10 percent (43 billion pounds) and consumer-level losses 21 percent (90 billion pounds) of the available food supply. (Losses on the farm and between the farm and retailer were not estimated due to data limitations for some of the food groups.)
The numbers are pretty insane right? Again of all the food that is produced, ten percent is wasted at the retail level, twenty one percent at home.
Why waste is so bad
https://youtu.be/PEP0A93pYIk?t=2m1s
We all know it's bad in environmental terms, with respect to production, obviously anything from an apple to something we typically think of as really environmentally unfriendly like a hamburger requires input, agricultural and energy inputs, right? So if we waste less of these things, we buy less of these things and we produce less of these things and the environment thanks us for it.
And if you eat meat that means that fewer animals are suffering and dying because of what you've bought, obviously buying the meat and consuming it is better than buying the meat and then letting it go to waste and then having to buy more to replace it.
But what about disposal itself? Apparently throwing out food has its own drastic environmental impact, and no I’m not talking about running out of landfills that is a myth, we could keep burying things practically forever, what I’m talking about is transportation, the trash has to make another trip, fuelled by fossil fuels to make it to a landfill.
Food waste accounts for the largest single component of garbage after recycling, twenty-one percent of solid municipal waste according to the EPA. And despite methods at methane venting and burning, landfills still generate substantial amounts of methane:
. . .Additionally, incinerating food waste creates emissions that harm the environment and landfilling food waste generates methane gas when food waste decomposes anaerobically. Methane is 21 times more powerful in accelerating global warming than carbon dioxide (EPA, 2011). Landfills account for 34 percent of all human- related methane emissions in the United States (EPA, 2011). In addition to methane, landfills produce leachate (a mixture of liquid waste, organic degradation byproducts, and rainwater), which may contaminate ground- water if the landfills are not properly maintained. These negative consequences are offset to some extent when energy is generated from incinerating or landfilling food (e.g., tapping the methane gas).
34%, that is even larger than the globally estimated 27% produced by enteric fermentation in animal agriculture - cow farts and burps. So this brings up an interesting question, is eating 30 bananas a day and putting 30 banana pills into a landfill, is that just as bad as eating animal products but avoiding food waste? It's unlikely since there is probably less net CO2 emissions from the banana diet, but the overall environmental impact may not be very far off.
Avoiding waste at home
https://youtu.be/PEP0A93pYIk?t=4m5s
The good news is that the vast majority of food waste is under our control 67% of it occurs at home, at the consumer level, the APA actually has a really useful guide on reducing food waste at home. [4]
The bottom line, according to them is just to try not to do it at all. Putting when food is expected to go bad on your calendar is really helpful, also storing things carefully like laying fruits out on the counter, you know separately, instead of like mashed up in bowls where it's really easy for something to go bad somewhere in the middle or on the bottom and then it can spread really, really quickly.
Avoid buying more food than you can eat right away or relatively soon if it's something that can spoil, this is something that I really struggle with, if there is you know delicious cantaloupe on sale, a crazy sale, I am so tempted to buy like five of them and there's just, I can't eat five kantalopes before they go bad, I know this but uh, it's just very tempting. Also having a leftovers night, you know eat the leftovers once or twice a week, that is really helpful as well.
Waste that we can't avoid
https://youtu.be/PEP0A93pYIk?t=5m12s
So what about the inevitable food waste like banana peels for instance, hopefully you aren't fine eating 30 bananas a day, but you may be eating a couple you know bananas a day, so obviously you have a banana peel that is inevitable waste, while the EPA recommends composting, they recommended both for food scraps and yard scraps and they have a helpful guide on how to do that as well. [5]
The basic idea is to keep it covered, so that animals don't get into it, but you also want it to get some air so that it can aerobically decompose, instead of giving off methane, cutting off air to the decomposing food like being buried deep in a landfill; this is what creates the emissions.
You can buy compost bins and tumblers, the one that you just turn to move, you can buy those online, you can even make your own, there are even specially made ones for indoors, if you do not have outdoor space.
Waste in retail
https://youtu.be/PEP0A93pYIk?t=6m6s%7C
Most of the rest of the waste is at the retail level and that may sound like we don't really have much control there, we can't really influence that at all, but actually we have a great amount of control there as well.
So let's start with what we know, what kind of food produces the most waste in general:
The top three food groups in terms of share of total value of food loss were meat, poultry, and fish (30 percent, $48 billion); vegetables (19 percent, $30 billion); and dairy products (17 percent, $27 billion).
So meat is the worst right? Which means that just by going vegetarian, you are already helping a lot in terms of waste reduction and that's not just in terms of production of these things, which we already pretty much know is wasteful in and of itself, it's harmful to the environment, obviously harmful to animals, but also in terms of the supply chain, because these things go bad very quickly in the store.
Next are veggies and dairy which are about the same, in terms of dairy obviously milk spoils and cheese moulds, in terms of veggies pretty obvious as well, I mean all of us I think have to go through sifting through the vegetables in the produce aisle right? The romaine or the broccoli or the fruit whatever it is trying to look for the stuff that isn't mouldy and gross, that's obvious waste at the retail level, so vegetarian very helpful obviously giving up meat, vegan even more so giving up meat and dairy, but you can still do more.
Basing a diet around dried staples, things that do not spoil easily, beans and nuts and whole grains, this is the best thing that we can do to avoid waste as consumers at both at home and at the retail level. You know eating a fruit and greens diet, raw till 4, fully raw, eighty:ten:ten, high raw, whatever you want to call it, it's not only unhealthy for you but certainly less environmentally friendly unless you are growing all of your food yourself and composting everything which I’m willing to bet you're not.