TWO MILLION PEOPLE in Australia struggle to put food on the table....
While $8 BILLION worth of food is wasted each year....
At a profound cost to the ENVIRONMENT....

And THE PROBLEM appears to be GROWING: of SecondBite’s community food program partners EXPERIENCED AN INCREASE IN DEMAND in the previous 12 months 80%.....

http://secondbite.org/sites/default/files/secondbite_ar2014_web.pdf

Personally I am tired of what I call "food snobs" who live in Australia. They are not necessarily rich, these people are people who lazily (for example) leave huge plates of food at a local food court for example. So many times, when I'm in a food court, nearly full plates of food can be seen all over the place.

Considering two million people in Australia struggle to put food on the table, how do we get these selfish, "food snobs", who see food as a luxury out of this throw away mindset?

It is hard to believe that 2 million Australians are finding it hard to get enough food. That's a lot of people, and there is a lot of guff put out by the media and agitators.

Firstly Nathan, to put things into prospective, you would first need to take these 2 million people and remove those from the list who engage in the taking of elicit drugs, grog, cigs and gambling before you can really determine just how many go without food, through no fault of their own.

Secondly, consumers as a whole today demand perfection in almost everything they buy, from fresh fruit, to meat, seafood, just about everything so the supermarkets, the main providers of fresh food tend to throw products away after a certain time, regardless of the appearance.

Thirdly, use by dates see millions of dollars worth of food wasted simply because people are scared to eat something that is just a few days out of date.

About the only thing that will change this is a depression, as people as a whole need a reality check to make them realize the excesses they take for granted are not the norm

Sorry NathanJ, I won't accept there are many people going hungry other than through their own fault.

If they smoke, drink, run a car or chose to live in an area of very high rents, they have no one to blame but themselves.

If they chose to live the high life, rather than establish themselves with the things they would need in retirement, that was their choice, & should shut up & pay the price of that choice.

Many retirees have moved to places like Howard, Jandowae or Cootamundra, where the cost of housing, to buy or rent, is much lower. This helps pensioners, but also helps keep these old towns alive.

Those who chose to stay in the big smoke in retirement have made their own choice. If that means food is short, so be it.

Nathan, I often leave uneaten food on the plate if I'm grabbing something at a food court or similar place. This is because it is nearly impossible to get small serves. I love muffins but I never buy them any more because now they are gigantic - I just dont want to eat that much.
Ask the staff why you can't buy smaller servings and they just shrug, or say, well we can wrap up half and you can take it home.
I don't think this is anything to do with food snobbery. It seems to be a strange vicious circle. Caterers think people want big serves, but people buy them because they don't feel they have much choice.
Of course, the uneaten food left behind may also mean that what may look good at the food stand turns out to be really awful.
Than goodness for the sushi train, where you can choose as little or as much as you want, in small packets. I've never seen food left uneaten at these establishments.

Maybe the discussion is better directed at the very positive things that SecondBite does and the products that find their way to those who need support.

See here for instance,
http://secondbite.org/coles-community-food

There are also community gardens and the growing advice they can give. It is so easy though with an over-abundance of information on the Net.

It interests me that one only has to go back one generation to see people growing at least some of the easily grown greens and tomatoes that help the budget.

If only Victoria's education department could focus on needed life skills like that instead of demanding that children imagine they have no genitals etc.

NathamJ,

If brick bats are needed, perhaps direct them at the lazy who do not get off their behind to care for a bit of soil or a balcony planter box and who refuse to prepare a meal from basics.

It is easy to make tasty food from dried beans for example. I meet plenty of creaking, pain-racked seniors who eke out their diet with home grown and have the foresight to soak a cupful of dried peas.

The self-absorbed, 'Me, Me, Me' generations are already costing the taxpayer a bomb for early onset diabetes. Not funny, they will be losing legs one day and soon.

Nothing said here yet about a single low income worker family with 4 kids to feed and clothe plus rent to pay.

Even with one child it can be difficult, especially if there are transport costs to get to work and back.

Get rid of the cashed up snobs on this thread for a start, eh!

So JF Aus says "Nothing said here yet about a single low income worker family with 4 kids to feed and clothe plus rent to pay."

Well here's something I'll say to this then: Why did they choose to have 4 kids? Why didn't they have only as many children as they can comfortable afford?

The man could have had the snip or the women have her tubes tied after one or two children. Surely in this day and age everyone knows about family planning and knows that they have different means and methods to choose from.

For a couple, who both contribute income- even if both are on low income with only one full time and the other part time, raising one child is not all that hard. Ok, so they won't be able to go the movies each week nor eat takeaway/dining-out every other day and some of their furniture will be second hand but the family will certainly not be in anything close to what you could call poverty (poverty in the sense that they barely have enough have shelter, clothing nor food to survive).

Unfortunately people live in this dream land where they think that if someone else has something (even if they worked their whole life for it) then it is only fair that they should have it to.

thinkabit more.

If economists of the world were doing the job they are supposed to do there would be enough business and employment and income for all willing to work towards prosperity and peace.

Whatever happened to the populate or perish agenda? LOL

JF Aus: your last post read a lot like left-wing-loser talk.

In typical "Nothing is ever my responsibility, so my misery must be someone's fault" thinking you immediately blame just one group in society, ie. economists, as cause of all the world's problems because they're not doing their job.

Well, I've got news for you: many economists are doing their "job" very well. Their job is to make those who employ them, ie: wealthy people, richer by assessing and predicting the economic activity of the various industries and regions in the world.

It's not the job of economists to create employment for the useless, envious unmotivated, self-centered no-hopers that abound.

If people want or need some help to improve their lot, then the best place for them to start is by helping themselves. eg: They could enroll in a course to improve their skillls or they could move to an area that has plenty of employment.

Thinkabit,

What area or region of the world has plenty of properly paid employment?

JF Aus,

What to you is "properly paid employment"?

For me, the proper price for anything, be it a good, service or labour is that which results when supply meets demand in a free market. Basically, as long as each side of an employment contract is free to offer, accept or counter-offer the terms which deal with the amount paid and the hours worked, then that is properly paid employment.
This means that in the case of employment at low wages, impediments to a market determined price, such as minimum wages, leads to improperly paid employment. Another case of improperly paid employment, but on the other end of the scale, is caps on wages/salaries such as the salary cap in sports like the NRL.

In addition to removing barriers to open negotiation, the rates of pay and the type of work agreed upon in any employment contract should be publicly available (withholding the names of the employees, but not the employers). Eg: a central government web-site which is searchable by employer name/business number should be provided. This allows potential employees to vet employers before applying for a job.

Now, don't get me wrong, I believe that people should receive an adequate amount to live a high quality life. In Australia, in my experience for a single person this would be about $500wk. For a person working a 40hr/wk this is about $13.00/hr (before tax). So, if someone is earning less than this then the Government should make up the difference (ie: subsidise wages) provided the that the subsidy is less than half this wage (ie: the subsidy is a max of $6.50/hr).

Lastly, people whose wages are subsidised can additionally "bank" the same amount to go towards further training, be it safety/machinery tickets, TAFE couses, Uni ,etc. Eg: if someone is receiving a $4/hr subsidy then they also receive $4/hr for each hour worked towards a course for improving their skillset to make them more employable, so after a year they will have accumulated about $8000 which can be spent on government approved courses).

thinkabit,

My view on properly paid employment is the same as yours.

But where in the world is enough such properly paid employment available?

Therein is the problem/s.

And don't get me wrong.
I am aware there are too many financial burdens for business to generate such employment. Payroll tax for example.

On top of it all the media is constantly attacking and disrupting politicians and government. Now it seems there is a media push to oust Barnaby Joyce and return double crosser Tony Windsor.

Example, Barnaby Joyce steered me into making a submission to the Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper - Green Paper - Supporting Information, involving new water harvesting infrastructure and new productivity and export opportunity for Australia.
But the ABC and major media don't investigate and report that. Not even to denounce it or question feasibility.

It's not just food snobs, it's snobbery about everyone if you are not in the club.
Media could inspire progress in Australia and then more people would have jobs and enough money to buy food instead of having to increasingly rely on handouts.

Well, not that anyone will read this cause this thread is dead, but I feel I should slighty correct something I said.

My suggestion was to let wages be determined by market forces, ie: there is no minimum wage. However, the Government should subsidise the difference between between the low wage and $ 500 (for forty hours work) upto the upper cutoff of a $250 subsidy. (The limit on the subsidy is so that people don't reciprocally employ each other while while not actually doing any work but instead live exclusively on the subsidy- the sudsidy cutoff is based on the amount of the unemployments benefits) Ie: someone earning $10/hr who works 40hr would get a subsidy of $100.

The slight problem with this is that there is no incentive for someone who will work for $500 a weak to offer anything above $250, since the government will make up for it with the subsidy. So the subsidy should only be a fraction of the difference between the wage and comfortable living amount, say 70%. To maintain approximately the same comfortable livable total income for the lowest paid worker (ie: some who offers $250/wk), the subsidy should kick-in at $600. ie: for someone at $400 per week gets a subsidy of 70% of $600-$400=$160 giving a total wage of $540, whereas a person who will work for $250 dollars a week gets a subsidy of 70% of $600-$250=$245 giving a total wage of $495. Now there is an incentive for an employee to offer higher than the $250/wk wage