Eat Ugly - Real Food Porn

Imagine a world where only white 6 foot 180 pound men were acceptable. Even in Trump’s America we can’t imagine that. And yet when it comes to our vegetables and fruits that is what we do. Only the perfectly proportioned beautiful fruits and vegetables make it past the farm, to the supermarket and finally to our mouth.

The irony is that beautiful or not they end up exactly the same way in your stomach. Tasting just as good, providing the same amount of nutrition, and the same amount of calories the non white non 6 foot tall non 180lb male turns out to be just as good as his same boring cousin. We wouldn’t stand for it among humans, we don’t stand for it among animals so why do we think this way when it comes to fruits and vegetables?

Over two years ago, food activist Jordan Figueiredo created Ugly Fruits and Vegetables, a campaign to fight food waste around the world. Figueiredo has an active Twitter campaign with almost 83,000 followers. #funactivism as he calls it but even more importantly he educates the public to realize that ugly or not, in produce it is what is inside that counts! Join the campaign and eat some ugly today at http://www.endfoodwaste.org/ug...

In a world where food insecurity not to simply say hunger afflicts millions of people; it is beyond shocking to find out that we waste 20-40% of the food we produce. In fact, “the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that about 795 million people of the 7.3 billion people in the world, or one in nine, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2014-2016. Almost all the hungry people, 780 million, live in developing countries, representing 12.9 percent, or one in eight, of the population of developing countries.” (http://www.worldhunger.org/2015-world-hunger-and-poverty-facts-and-statistics/ )

The sad reality is that “the world produces enough food to feed everyone. For the world as a whole, per capita food availability has risen from about 2220 kcal/person/day in the early 1960s to 2790 kcal/person/day in 2006-08, while developing countries even recorded a leap from 1850 kcal/person/day to over 2640 kcal/person/day." However especially in the developed countries the allure of perfectly proportioned and sized food has created a waste problem. Produce that isn't even really ugly but instead like its human brethren diverse is discarded and wasted simply because it is a little bit bigger or smaller than the norm and maybe just doesn’t have those perfect 36” breasts, 26” waist and 36” hips of the perfect woman. So are women that measure 38”-38”-40” or 34”-26”-34” not just as wonderful in every sense of the word.

But we are in California you say. No need to worry about hunger. Wrong. According to the California Association of Food Banks: "Here in California, nearly 1 in 8 households face food insecurity every day. 'Food insecurity' is the occasional or constant lack of access to the food one needs for a healthy, active life. For the 5.4 million Californians struggling with food insecurity, hard choices must be made between buying food and meeting such basic needs as housing, medicine, transportation, or childcare. Food insecurity disproportionately affects children and seniors. Tragically, 1 out of every 4 California kids may go to bed hungry each night."

What is really ugly, one might say simply unethical, is the way that this produce is being wasted while so many are food insecure, cannot afford food and/or do not eat enough healthy produce. So stop being so silly and make your fruit smoothie, your veggie omelette or your eggplant parmigiana with the full complement of sizes and shapes.

PS. If you are really motivated help organize a local Free Feast a la http://news.nationalgeographic...