BBC Learnings · Section 1

United against food waste

Does this situation sound familiar to you, Sam? You reach into the kitchen refrigerator looking for something to eat,

Level: B1 · 115 sentences

Transcript

1. Does this situation sound familiar to you, Sam?
2. You reach into the kitchen refrigerator looking for something to eat,
3. only to find a brown lettuce,
4. a sad-looking cucumber and some two-week-old fish all past its use-by date.
5. The date printed on the food containers
6. showing how long it is safe to eat.
7. Oh, I'm guilty of wasting food, Neil, me and many others.
8. According to the UN, one third of the food we grow
9. ends up in the rubbish bin.
10. And it's not just food that's wasted,
11. it's also the resources used to produce that food things like water,
12. land and transport.
13. In this programme, we'll be talking about food waste.
14. We'll meet the people trying to stop us from throwing good food away and,
15. as usual, we'll be learning some new vocabulary as well.
16. Here in the UK,
17. big supermarkets import food from abroad for customers to enjoy
18. all year round.
19. Summer fruit like strawberries and mangoes are flown in from tropical countries
20. and sold in winter, increasing carbon emissions as well as waste.
21. Yes, that's why you hear the phrase, eat local,
22. eat seasonal, to encourage people to buy and eat food
23. which has been grown in their local area
24. at that time of year.
25. So, Sam, my question is which
26. of the following foods can be grown in Britain throughout the year?
27. Is it a strawberries, b kale or c rhubarb?
28. It's definitely not strawberries because they only grow in summer,
29. so I'll say b kale.
30. OK, I'll reveal the answer later.
31. We've talked about supermarkets in Britain,
32. but food waste is happening all over the world.
33. In Puerto Rico too, most people shop in supermarkets,
34. making it difficult for farmers to choose what to sell
35. and how much to charge for their fruit and vegetables.
36. Josefina Arcai is a farmer who wanted to make it
37. easier for customers to buy local food.
38. She started an online shop to connect shoppers with farmers directly,
39. without the supermarkets.
40. Here Josefina explains her project to Jo Mathis,
41. reporter for BBC World Service programme People Fixing the World.
42. So Josefina, that's the farmer
43. who we heard earlier growing those giant avocados.
44. She used to have to sell her crops to these kind of middlemen.
45. We had a lot of, I don't know how you call, carreros.
46. It's just people that have a big truck
47. and they will just come by and they will say,
48. what do you have?
49. Oh, that's too expensive.
50. Ooh, very expensive.
51. I wanted half that price.
52. So I didn't have any way of controlling
53. how I was going to sell.
54. It just depended on these people coming.
55. And a lot of these Carreros are kind of commissioned by the supermarkets.
56. All this leads to food waste
57. because it's really hard for farmers like Josefina
58. to predict which crops they're going to be able to sell.
59. Josefina used to sell her food to Carreros or middlemen,
60. people who buy food directly from the grower
61. and make money by selling it on to customers.
62. Josefina had no control over what to sell.
63. And a lot of her food went to waste.
64. Usually middlemen are commissioned.
65. They receive a payment from the supermarkets directly related to the amount they sell.
66. But with Josefina's online shop,
67. farmers get a fair price for their food,
68. customers get high-quality fresh vegetables, and less food is wasted.
69. Another problem is that we throw away food after we've bought it.
70. In fact, the UN estimates that 60% of food waste happens in this way,
71. often because it's past the use-by date
72. and might not be safe to eat.
73. But according to green designer Solveig Paksteise,
74. these use-by dates aren't always accurate,
75. something she discussed with BBC World Service's People Fixing the World.
76. Well, food makers don't know how people will keep their products.
77. So, for instance,
78. they might forget to put their groceries straight in the fridge
79. when they get home.
80. So what they do is they calculate calculate the use-by date using a very cautious estimate.
81. Food producers and supermarkets,
82. they kind of have to calculate it to the worst case scenario
83. because they don't know
84. which product is going to get stored at the wrong temperature,
85. so they have to blanket apply a shorter date to protect consumers.
86. Supermarkets set cautious use-by dates for the worst case scenario,
87. the worst case that could possibly happen in a situation For example,
88. someone getting sick and dying of food poisoning.
89. In other words, they blanket apply use-by dates.
90. Here, blanket is an adverb,
91. meaning applied in the same way to everything,
92. even when there are differences between those things.
93. Doing this protects customers from bad food,
94. but it also means a lot of safe-to-eat food gets thrown away.
95. Maybe it's best to stick to local seasonal food after all.
96. Anyway, Neil, what was the answer to your question? Right.
97. I asked you which food could be grown in Britain all year round.
98. You said kale, which was the correct answer.
99. Unlike strawberries and rhubarb, kale grows in all seasons and what's more,
100. it's good for you too.
101. OK, let's recap the vocabulary we've learned,
102. starting with use-by date the date
103. until which food is safe to eat.
104. The slogan, eat local, eat seasonal,
105. encourages people to buy food
106. which has been grown locally during the current season.
107. A middleman buys produce directly from the producer
108. before selling it on to customers for a profit.
109. If he is commissioned,
110. he receives a payment directly related to the amount he sells.
111. The worst case scenario describes the most serious
112. unpleasant thing that could happen in a situation.
113. And finally, the adverb blanket means
114. applied in the same uniform way to everything,
115. even when there are differences between those things.