Ugly fruits and vegetables are simply wasted

November 12, 2015

Grocers have cosmetic standards, rejecting unattractive produce and adding to 133 billion pounds of annual food waste

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Ugly fruits and vegetables are simply wasted

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says every year, American consumers and businesses waste 133 billion pounds of food. Meanwhile, nearly 50 million Americans live in households that struggle to put food on the table. Analysts say one solution is to stop wasting tons of otherwise perfectly fine fruits and vegetables just because they are not pretty enough. Farmers turn billions of pounds of what some people call ugly or imperfect produce into mulch. And lots of freak fruits and weird veggies just end up in the trash. There is now a growing movement to try to get more of these uglies into stores. But as Duarte Geraldino reports, the obstacles include a government grading system and hard economic realities.


 

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