The Real Cause of Food Waste- Why Canadians Throw Away $17 Billion Dollars Each Year

Written By Angela Johnston

Last week I was here at Head Quarters getting back into the swing of things. Putting away holiday decorations, tidying the office, changing over wipe erase calendars… getting back into the routine of being focused.I was enjoying a private concert with the Indigo Girls via Youtube, and thinking and strategizing about Priority Kids and our mission and vision for 2021. One of the things I found myself thinking about (not for the first time) is how everything is connected to childhood sexual abuse.

Everything is connected to childhood sexual abuse

As I finished my final harmony of Secure Yourself (thanks Emily and Amy, we sounded great, btw), a commercial came on for a product that has something to do with food waste prevention.The actor asked me, “Do you know what causes food waste?”And so I stated, “Yes I do. It’s childhood sexual abuse”.I said it out loud and I said it proud.I didn’t really process the question; I just know that everything is impacted by childhood sexual abuse and so it must be the correct answer.However, the advertisement's answer was that it is a storage problem. And when I visited the website, Love Food Hate Waste Canada, I was not really surprised that they did not list childhood sexual abuse as a cause of food waste.Instead, they state, “Unfortunately, we often waste good food because we buy too much, cook too much, or don’t store it correctly.”Hmmmm. So this food waste prevention initiative agrees with the ad. It is, in part, a storage issue.This forced me to really think it through. Is food waste caused by childhood sexual abuse?Well, of course it is.Here’s why.

Self-Preservation

Self preservation is a natural impulse. I know this is true from my life experience and I fact checked my belief with the dictionary. Self-preservation is literally defined as a natural or instinctive tendency.And, obviously, self-preservation requires food. It also requires community. It is widely known that a sense of belonging and interpersonal connections are basic human needs. Community is a survival need. Self-preservation is survival.So, why would our natural impulses drive us to waste food when we are naturally driven to self-preservation?Does wasting food have an impact on our self-preservation? Sure it does. Look at the financial cost of wasting food.We spend $17 billion dollars a year on food that we plant, grow, harvest, process, package, deliver, buy, store and then put it in the garbage or compost it without consuming the nutrients.Imagine what $17 billion dollars could do if we were able to redirect the money. $17 billion dollars are up for grabs… do we not need that money for our self-preservation? Is our health and wellness so complete that we just don’t need this money? Our overall abundance and joy is such that $17 billion dollars is meaningless to us?But forget about the financial cost. Let’s look at the environmental impact.

Canada’s 2.2 million tonnes of avoidable household food waste isequivalent to 9.8 million tonnes of CO2 and 2.1 million cars on the road LFHW

Every tonne of household food waste that is avoided is the equivalent of taking one car off the road each year.

LFHW

This means that if we stopped wasting food, that would be equivalent to removing 2.1 million cars from driving each year. The global lock down orders of early 2020 showed us many startling and amazing images of what our world looks like when we slow down transportation. Taking a theoretical 2.1 million cars off the road each year would be a phenomenal improvement in our relationship with the environment.

All this financial and environmental waste because we aren't storing food properly?

Since food, community and our environment are essential components of our self-preservation, I would argue that our relationship with food waste is not wonky because we don’t have the correct food storage systems.We don’t have the correct food storage systems because our natural impulses are wonky. Our self-preservation impulses should be driving us towards sustainable and healthy relationships. Unsustainable and unhealthy relationships have predictable negative impacts on us and diminish our self-preservation capacity.Love Food Hate Waste Canada is a behaviour change campaign. Why do we need to change our behaviour around food? Because we are wasting it. What’s the harm done when we waste food?We are harming our environment and we are wasting resources that could be used to improve the quality of our lives.So, again, why would we do that? Why would people who need the environment and resources for survival, for self-preservation, for health and well being… why would we waste food?I can tell you from personal experience that every head of lettuce that goes into my compost bin was purchased with good intentions. I have never thrown away food because I stored it improperly. I have almost always cleaned out the rotting vegetables from my vegetable drawers because I did not use them. I was too tired to make the salad. I was resigned that my kids wouldn’t want it. I didn’t get around to chopping the vegetables and placing them on the table so that we would all eat our veggies.I was too busy doing something else to take the time for vegetable prepping and so I turned on the oven and put in some frozen french fries.That is a relationship problem. And if you are thinking about food waste in a different context, such as food that is transported great distances and encounters waste in the transportation cycle, I would still argue that this is a relationship problem.We are not aware of where the food comes from, how it gets here, and the impact that travel has on the world we live in. And while our awareness of these challenges is increasing, we are still behaving in a way that causes excessive food waste.

So, how is this food waste problem connected to childhood sexual abuse?

The more common trauma is in a community, the more likely that all community members will be impacted by the negative side effects of trauma. Anxiety, depression, heart disease and stroke, homelessness, poverty, criminal behaviour, suicide, addiction, etc. etc.Children who are sexually abused are more likely to experience these challenges, and when they do encounter these challenges, the impact is felt by their entire community.

34% of children in Canada are sexually abused before the age of 18

Which means that a significant percentage of the population of any community is in some stage of recovery.We know that mental health services are difficult to access.We know that wait times for mental health support can be months and that many people who seek help do not qualify or are not able to access appropriate services for an appropriate amount of time.We know that many people who could benefit from support do not seek support.(Wouldn’t that extra $17 billion dollars come in handy now?)Childhood trauma has an impact on our impulses. When a child is traumatized and their survival instincts are ‘turned on’, it has an impact on self-preservation.What becomes necessary for short-term survival may not be congruous with long-term self-preservation. Staying quiet may be necessary for a child who is hiding from a perpetrator, but if that survival response is not attended to, it could stay activated past the point of being helpful.And so it is that many people in our culture are driven by survival instincts that no longer serve self-preservation. We are drawn to over-working, over-thinking, over-worrying. We are drawn to drive-thrus. We are drawn to excess.We are drawn to waste.We are drawn away from the healthy habits that we KNOW are beneficial for our self-preservation.Our self-preservation instincts are harmed by childhood trauma. Our impulses to build community, to care for our family and friends, to eat well and to take care of the environment we live in have been over-ridden by survival instincts that have been threatened.Food waste in Canada is another example of what happens when too many members of our population suffer from the trauma of childhood sexual abuse. Rather than being thoughtful and intentional about what we eat, where it comes from, and how it came to be in our homes, we buy and toss as though it has no impact in the world.Maybe better food storage will help reduce waste. But I don’t think that people who are suffering with mental health challenges, poverty, addiction and poor health will be easily ‘on boarded’ to the campaign for better food storage.We do our best learning and changing from a place of safety. People who feel safe are more likely to make the behaviour changes we need to see in the world.If you are a food conscious person and food waste concerns you, then please reach out and connect with Priority Kids.Our mission is to eradicate childhood sexual abuse and we want to work with you to strengthen our communities ability to protect children from this trauma.Protecting children from sexual abuse may not be the most obvious solution to food waste, but how can we hope for a better world if we don't also hope to eradicate childhood sexual abuse?I challenge communities to make protecting children from sexual abuse our top priority as an experiment to see what happens to our food waste problem when rates of childhood sexual abuse decline.What happens to food waste when our self-preservation impulses remain intact, unharmed by childhood trauma and the community-wide impact left in its wake?Will you accept the challenge?

###

If the content of this article causes you distress or discomfort, please seek support.

Where to get help in Nova Scotia

Angela Johnston
Previous

You Put Kids at Risk When You Ignore THIS
Next

New Year New Normal