Feeding of 5k in Trafalgar Square
Lunch was an elegant protest in a flurry of snow in Trafalgar Square. Delicious fruit smoothies, vegetable curry, all the fruit you could find. Supermarket waste. And all of it would otherwise have ended up in landfill. Not even composted.
This lovely fruit made thousands of smoothies, full of goodness. Why don't supermarkets TRY selling less-than-perfect fruit, and see what happens? Why don't they give the rest to homeless charities. And COMPOST whatever's left.
They couldn't give these grapes away fast enough. No stalks, so no good to the supermarket, apparently. Daft world: I spent a few minutes earlier in the week taking grapes off their stalks to put in a sauce. But even if they don't want to sell them, they should at least PUT THEM IN THE COMPOST.
Then on to Heywood Hill to pick up a book they'd found for me; and a walk round Shepherd Market. Heywood Hill really is the most life-enhancing shop, laid out a little like a library in a private house, and full of well-chosen books, both old and new. Always lots you want to browse, some you want to buy. Nancy Mitford used to work there; now there's a helpful young man called Ben, and a bevy of girls in the room at the back.
And home, to find the house looks like this:
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7 comments:
What an interesting day - I didn't know about the Feeding of 5K event, a point well worth making and what a good way to do it.
I hate to waste anything - we either eat it or compost it to feed next season's veg and fruit.
Yes, we had snow too! (or did you have an earthquake?)
Celia
Sounds like a great day. It's nice not to waste.
Yes, a great idea, and certainly gets the point across.
It looks great, I saw a whole load of tweets about it from various people who braved the cold, and it sounded like fun, although I was pleased to be inside!
Cant believe those naughty boys left the kitchen door open!
Exx
sounds like an excellent day.
I work for a large retailer which sells food as part of its range and use to give all its waste to homeless charities.
the problem for my employer is 2 fold;
a)if you give it away, you have to check the health and safety of the charity and so continually test what they do and monitor them - this costs a lot of money.
b)it was found that large amounts of the stuff given away found its way back into the stores with people who were not homeless and did not need the food, demanding refunds for things that had "gone off"
i cannot speak for all the chains but i know mine would really like to do more with waste - and actively state this in every store ("theres no plan x")- and welcomes all suggestions.
Thanks for interesting comments. Celia, sorry about all the sideways photos- as you say, an apparent earthquake
Robert - I am really interested in what you say. Of course it is difficult. I think there's scope for selling smaller/uglier fruit and veg. I think there should be much more widespread composting of food- and on a large scale you can compost stuff the home gardener can't hope to. The idea that we fly food in and then put it in landfill seems to me the very definition of decadence. We must do better
Dear Joanna,
It was indeed a wonderful day filled with such positive vibes from all those that attended the event. I was there volunteering and felt the strong connection between people!
It is so important to pass this information on in todays society, as it seems that we are all blindly following the huge organisations and under leash of their control. It's good to wake up people through a positive medium, and this served it's purpose. Here's to many of more events such as the one held on the 16th December.
Nice blog you have here!
Just found it via doing a search of the event on Google.
Always good to hear different interpretations of the event from people. :)
(I have a record of the event at my own blog)
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