Why We Should Make Peace with Ugly Food to Reduce Food Waste
Ugly food is closely related to food waste. In contrast to other reasons for the generation of food waste such as food waste, the distribution process that causes food loss, expiration, contamination, ugly food becomes food waste because people tend to refuse to eat it.
When we go for shipping at the supermarket, we have some expectations of the product we will buy in our heads. This also applies when we shop for vegetables or fruit. We already have a standard that the vegetables and fruits we buy must be of the best quality.
Generally, we measure of the quality or standard of good or bad vegetables and fruit from their color, size, and shape. We find ‘different’ fruit or corps to be unnatural, so we often put it aside and choose for a more ‘normal’ looking goods.
There is a difference between a product that is good, perfect, and desirable, and a product that is less than good, imperfect, and not desirable. So the term ‘Ugly Food’ or ‘Imperfect Product’ emerged.
What is Ugly Food or Imperfect Product?
Ugly Food or Imperfect Product can be defined as a product that does not meet market standards in terms of appearance. In this case, the media does have a strong influence on the formation of public perceptions of the beauty standards of the products. In addition, along with the massive influence of social media, aesthetics is also something that is glorified, including foods.
As a result, a lot of food is wasted from the over-selective process of vegetables and fruits. Even so, the fact showed that Ugly Food or imperfect products have nutritional content that is no less superior to products that have an attractive appearance. The other name for Ugly Food are Imperfect Products and Rejected Vegetables. The word reject comes from the production term when a commodity does not pass the supermarket selection. The number of rejected vegetables that are wasted by supermarkets is not small. Quality Greens, a community that cares about Ugly Food based in Ontario, Canada, accepts Rejected Vegetables up to 5kg to 10kg every day.
In addition to standardization formed in society and the market, Ugly Food is also driven by a surplus in agriculture. In a certain half of the month, Indonesian farmers usually experience a harvest surplus, so farmers will choose the best harvest to sell in order to maintain prices. Meanwhile, in the process of selecting the harvest, defects found in vegetables or fruits usually cause the product to not be included in the superior product. The product may be sold but at a lower price. Under certain conditions, defective products do not end up on the market or even get thrown away. This indicates the unsustainability of food.
What Can We Do with Ugly Food or Imperfect Products?
The condition of Ugly Food or Imperfect Products on the market has had a bad impact on food sustainability, so what can we do with Ugly Food or Imperfect Products? The main thing, of course, is to accept it. From this acceptance, we can begin to take steps to process Ugly Food into more desirable products. First, in terms of processing, Ugly Food can be processed into other forms of food. For example, tomatoes that have a slightly lumpy shape, uneven color, and smaller size, can be crushed and processed into tomato sauce so that they have a selling price and value in the market. Another example, bananas that are too ripe and have brown spots on their yellow skin can be processed into fried bananas. The important point here is that the nutrients from Ugly Food are still very beneficial for consumption, so discarding these products is not a wise choice.
The second way we can do with Ugly Food is to use it as animal feed ingredients. Ugly Food has good nutrition which is not a good idea to not use it. Therefore, mixing Ugly Food with the composition of livestock feed can be a good choice. The example of Ugly Food products that can be used for animal feed are bananas, cabbage, or agricultural crop residues that are not absorbed by the market.
Ugly Food is also useful for people who love gardening and planting. Planting ornamental trees or aesthetic potted plants at houses has become a hobby for many people and has even become a trend in social media. Ugly Food can be used as organic plant fertilizer that supports soil fertility in pots, so plants won’t die in vain. In big cities, pollution is not only from the air, but industrialization sometimes causes the decrease of soil quality. The use of Ugly Food as organic plant fertilizer can help improve soil quality so that it is beneficial for planting media.
We can consider these ways to deal with the phenomenon of Ugly Food or Imperfect Products more wisely. Avanti Hanifa, a co-founder of From The Farm Bali, positively does not agree with the term of Ugly Food or Imperfect Product., because it is not the product that is imperfect, but the product is diverse. Different shapes, colors, and sizes are a form of the diversity of fruits and vegetables that are harvested at different temperatures, weather, and soil conditions.
Work Together to Prevent Ugly Food from Ending Up as A Trash
The awareness to deal with the issue of Ugly Food or Imperfect Product requires support from all the people, stakeholders, and government. As a form of contribution to a better future for Ugly Food, several communities, foundations, and NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) below are working together to manage, educate, and create an environment that is friendly to Ugly Food.
One of the communities that care about Ugly Food is Imperfect Foods, which is located in San Francisco, USA. Imperfect Foods currently operates as a Grocery Store. So that Ugly Food, which is widely rejected by market standards, is reabsorbed by them and distributed to the homes of people who order it online. At Imperfect Foods, there are currently more than 60 types of products available. For those who want to buy products from Imperfect Foods, they can register to the official website of Imperfect Foods for free and have the products with a fixed price.
Besides Imperfect Foods, there is an NGO that also handles the issue of standardizing the beauty of food products, namely Hungry Harvest. Hungry Harvest sees the differences in color, shape, and size of the harvest as diversity which is an opportunity for creativity. Since 2014, in Washington DC, Hungry Harvest has donated 27 million pounds of Ugly Food products to save lives and help fight hunger.
Apart from these two examples of initiatives, in Indonesia itself, the movement to tackle the issue of Ugly Food has been quite realized by several groups. One of them is the Foodbank of Indonesia (FOI) community. This community, which has the vision to build and innovate social projects, focuses on activities to reduce hunger and poverty. The Foodbank of Indonesia (FOI) community began at the epicenter of the movement that began in Cilegon City, Banten Province in 2016. Until now, FOI has expanded its movement throughout the country. In the end, overcoming the problem of Ugly Food or Imperfect Products is a shared responsibility. Differences in fruit and vegetable should not lead to problems in food unsustainability, while there are so many people trapped in hunger and poverty out there. With an awareness of the importance of appreciating crops in different shapes, colors, shapes, and sizes, why don’t we start to consume Ugly Food?
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