My mother was talking with me about our area back when she was growing up (and before, during the times of my grandparents and great-grandparents, who all have lived on the farm I live at now). In the course of the conversation, when talking about our chickens, she mentioned that they used to keep hens until they quit laying [eggs] and then if they didn't use them as stew chickens themselves, they would take them to town (live) and the produce man there would buy them to butcher for selling in his store. It was a way to make a little extra $$ when needed.
I grumbled because that isn't possible anymore -- too many federal regulations on meat -- USDA and all that -- no more friendly selling of good, wholesome free-range chickens to your local grocer. Too big a chance of getting sued if someone doesn't cook it long enough, or whatever.
Then I also had a conversation with my son's friend. This friend works in the deli department of Wal-Mart. He was dismayed that they are required by company policy to make a "certain number" of things like rotisserie chicken, regardless of how many customers they have, and if they don't sell after a certain period of time, they are thrown out. Same with many other items he makes -- it all gets thrown in the trash if it is through a slow time and no one buys them. He said they can't give them to homeless shelters, or take them home (employees) or anything -- because Wal-Mart doesn't want the liabilibity if they give them to a charity and them someone gets sick (for whatever reason) and blames the food and sues them. I have found this is also the policy at other store delis around town.
To me-- this just makes me shake my head in disgust. Such waste. Such a disposable society on one hand, when there is so much need on the other hand. Why do these legalities keep us from helping each other?
I'm not ranting against lawyers (cuz I love Dag) but the whole society mentality of suing over every little thing has allowed things to get like this, in part.
How I wish sometimes I had lived 150 years ago...
Farmgirl
[ November 30, 2004, 02:41 PM: Message edited by: Farmgirl ]
Posted by raventh1 (Member # 3750) on :
This all happens because people get greedy and think that taking from corporations doesn't hurt anybody. The corporations in turn do things to protect themselves.
I am not saying what they are doing is correct. I'm saying if we were not such a sue happy country things might be different.
This doesn't prevent you or him from dumpster diving either.
When any entity is more concerned for the welfare of other entities around it, than it's self, you have a happier society all around. But you cannot allow people to take advantage of you, what do you do?
[ November 30, 2004, 09:09 AM: Message edited by: raventh1 ]
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
There are, I have heard, good samaritan laws out there that state that a company that donates food cannot be sued for it by stupid greedy people. Ask him to look into those. Also, there should be a program where companies donate food and then get some sort of reward like a tax credit or something like that. Folks also should be able to set up there own little selling free ranged chicken stores or something, I'm sure there would be a market for that... There's always some sort of way... Worse is farmers growing more food than they can sell and being told to throw it away. I was in this Christain program that gleaned crops and gave them to organizations. It was a great weeklong experience.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
I can sell eggs -- but I don't think I can sell chickens (retail) I could probably give them away. But that isn't really the point, I guess. It just concerns me when some laws, or lawsuits, keep people from freely exchanging goods to whoever wants and/or needs them.
FG
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
When I worked at Bradlees, one of our jobs was to slice up "excess" clothing so it couldn't be used. We had to do it with the security guard watching.
Made me sick, because there wasn't even the liability issue here. The policy was simply that they didn't want to give people incentive not to buy.
Dagonee
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
quote:He was dismayed that they are required by company policy to make a "certain number" of things like rotisserie chicken, irregardless of how many customers they have, and if they don't sell after a certain period of time, they are thrown out.
At the stores I shop at, the chickens sit under heat lamps til someone gets one. How long can they sit out like that before they are considered unsafe to eat? It may be that they can't be delivered to a charity before they would be considered unsafe by regulations.
What about bakery items? Do they at least take leftover bread to shelters?
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
That's strange. A lot of big stores here donate the food when it's close to the date you can't eat it anymore. And everyone seems to think it's great and no one would sue them. As a matter of fact, a lot of people ( me included) buy in these stores because it makes me think they are less cynical than the others and I like to think that by giving them a better benefice, I encourage them to keep donating food. EDIT to add : zgator, they could give the food just before it's not safe to eat it.
[ November 30, 2004, 09:51 AM: Message edited by: Anna ]
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Yes, Anna, I think this is becoming an American phenomenon. Which is sad, because I think it is so opposite of the way things were originally designed to be.
There are stores here, I'm sure, that do donate. But when a mega-chain like Wal-Mart throws this much away, it just really upsets me because I know that means tons and tons of food nationwide.
Farmgirl
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
I'm afraid that's where we are leading to anyway. For exemple, there are more and more people who sue doctors even when there is no obvious medical error. I think it's the begining. And it makes me sad.
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
Anna, I thinking about cooked meat items that are left under a heat lamp for several hours during the day for customers. The time til they spoil is probably measured in hours, not days. I agree that refridgerated items that have reached their "sell by" date can be given away.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Yet another reason to hate Walmart and people who sue too much.
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
In winter, you can easily find an organisation to give the food in a few hours. At last in the big towns.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Wal-mart apparently contributes extensively to charities: Wal-mart Foundation
Don't knock 'em just 'cuz they make a buck off the slave labor of 10-year old Indonesian kids.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
I'm certainly not trying to pick on WalMart. They are by far not the only ones -- it is just because of their size, that this means it is megatons of food.
I have relatives that work for Walmart, so I'm not slamming them -- and they have been generous with cash contributions to some organizations I've been in. I'm just talking about the practice of throwing out good food, in general.
Farmgirl
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
Sorry Anna. I live in Orlando, FL. Winter is a foreign concept here.
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
Zgator : anyway I always found that stupid that some organisations give food only in winter. I mean, what should people do on summer ? Eat grass ? Posted by raventh1 (Member # 3750) on :
moo
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
I hear dandelion greens are delicious. . .
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
So..... there's really no way to reverse this trend, is there?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Well, the obvious answer would be to allow people who need the food to come to the store at prescribed times to get the leftover foods. That's not going to happen, of course.
Dagonee
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
I guess they would have to sign a I-won't-sue-you-whatever-happens form, then... Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I don't think it's the fear of suit that would keep them from doing that, but the fear of having "undesirables" in their stores.
There's no easy answer to the lawsuit question. We don't want to let people off the hook for knowingly giving away dangerous food. But we want to encourage charity. Remember, it's not just suits which win that cost the donor money - even defending one is likely to end the program. Maybe some kind of big insurance pool?
Dagonee
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
The cafeteria at Brown gives leftover food to homeless shelters and such. But the policy is that they can only give unopened batches of food. If a serving tray of food has been opened (saran wrap taken off) for serving to students, then that tray has to get thrown away at the end of the meal.
That's what I've been told, at least. What annoyed me was when they had servers spoon out the food for you. They gave everyone the same amount, which resulted in a lot of waste for people like me who are half the size of your average football player. Now they do self-serve which gives you the opportunity to choose wisely.
Posted by rubble (Member # 6454) on :
Farmgirl,
Great discussion!
From your first post though: "irregardless"
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
One wonders if Good Samaritan giving laws could be established, similar to the Good Samaritan passerby aid laws.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Well, rubble -- I thought about it as I wrote that, and second-guessed myself, then couldn't decide on the write form/spelling or whatever. So I finally just let it go.
So how should I fix it? Should it just be "regardless"?
FG
Posted by rubble (Member # 6454) on :
Farmgirl,
I'm just laughing near you, not at you
Here is what dictionary.com says
quote:Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.
I would use regardless, but I'm not an English major either.
[ November 30, 2004, 12:12 PM: Message edited by: rubble ]
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
I was an English major, and irregardless makes my brain implode. Use regardless and save my brain from more trauma. Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
Agreed. I love your argument and the discussion it provoked, but the "irregardless" took me right out of the rant.
Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :
All the food I've cooked for shelters while at university has had to be (just about) vegan. Not that we have any moral qualms with serving animal products, but stores won't donate meat, eggs or milk. They will, however, quite happily give you a big of half-rotten onions. It's the darndest thing. Not only that, but it's so much more difficult to get a kitchen cleared to prepare meats than to prepare vegetables. It's no worth the extra legal hassle much of the time.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:One wonders if Good Samaritan giving laws could be established, similar to the Good Samaritan passerby aid laws.
Here's why I don't think that would work. Good Samaritan laws tend to raise the level of culpability at which liability exists. For example, a non-doctor passer attempting to help by may be exempt from claims of negligence, but would be liable for gross negligence or recklessness.
The lines between negligence, gross negligence, and recklessness are easily blurred. This means that many instances of donating unsafe food could be colorably couched as gross negligence or recklessness.
A corporation is unlikely to risk something that will require thousands of dollars in legal fees, even if it could successfully get a complaint dismissed at the earliest possibility. If a complaint survives to discovery, the fees get up to tens of thousands of dollars very quickly.
Even settling for nuisance value would cost thousands. It's one thing for a corporation to factor this into a profit-generating activity. It's another to risk these thousands on a non-profit generating activity.
Dagonee
[ November 30, 2004, 01:40 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
quote:Don't knock 'em just 'cuz they make a buck off the slave labor of 10-year old Indonesian kids.
No, knock 'em because it's their fault that China has America by the economic balls and most Americans don't even care.
Also, read their policy about unions sometime. It's an... interesting read, regardless of how you feel about unions.
</aside>
[ November 30, 2004, 02:25 PM: Message edited by: twinky ]
Posted by Space Opera (Member # 6504) on :
I'll pick on Wal-Mart for you, Farmgirl! I'm mad because it appears that they are soon putting Toys R Us out of business. Mr. Opera's company handles all of the transactions for Toys's gift cards, and he said it's pretty common knowledge that they're going out of business next year and will only be selling baby items from then on.
space opera
Posted by Sara Sasse (Member # 6804) on :
I love Toys-R-Us and hate that it's going out of business. No one has the enormous selection that they do including Wal-Mart.
But isn't it strange that we're pissed that Wal-Mart is pushing them out of business since they did the same thing to so many smaller toy stores.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
I thought ToysARus was just subdividing their childrens clothing line and baby furniture lines further and spinning them off, I didn't think they were going out of business.
AJ
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
That's a very interesting link, Sara.
Thanks for sharing it
FG
Posted by Soara (Member # 6729) on :
here in Maryland, we have something called the Maryland Food Bank. it takes donations from independent people but also from supermarkets. the volunteers at the food bank then determine whether the food is okay to be given to poor people. they then ration the food out and give a certain supply to providers for each county, and it's the providers' job to figure out who's really in need and to distribute the food accordingly. it works quite well. Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Something like that makes the most sense - the donor provides the food as-is, the distributor takes the risk (for which they'd obtain insurance).
I think pooled programs like that are the only solution.
Dagonee
Posted by Brian J. Hill (Member # 5346) on :
Here's a potential solution to some of the problems caused by our overly-litigious society. It is made up of two components.
1. Caps on damages other than actual damages (i.e. punitive, excessive pain-and-suffering, etc.) This would discourage the average money-digging, ambulance-chasing Joe Shmuck lawyer--not to be confused with the average Joe Dagonee Shmoe lawyer, who has nothing but the good of all mankind as his intentions--from wanting to take on stupid frivolous lawsuits, since there is much less economic incentive.
2. Instate a review board for lawyers which has more teeth than the average State Bar Association. When an attorney had more than one lawsuit thrown out by a judge as frivolous, give the review board the power and the mandate to ban the jerk from practicing law for 5 years. That oughtta be enough of a disincentive for the few overly-greedy attorneys to maybe watch their back.
Any comments?
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
One of my roomies worked (briefly) for Mrs. Weiners - it's a fast food chicken chain, like KFC.
He would bring home boxes of chicken that was perfectly good, but by policy they had to throw away.
When I worked at Staples, the manager had to supervise the destruction of all the pallets and pallets of lined school paper instead of donating them to local charities because, as Dag pointed out, they didn't want to give consumers an incentive not to buy.
Mass production + Cheap labor = low cost which in turn means it's often cheaper to throw out a gadget, clothing or whathaveyou than it is to have it repaired.
That was the beginning of the disposable economy, but the policies regarding disposal of food stems from efforts to develop lawsuit protection just as much as an effort to not give consumers a reason not to buy their product. Example - "If we don't buy chicken, they'll give it away instead."
I'm just as guilty of the practice - I buy my clothing from Wal-Mart and Target, both chains import bulk quantities of product manufactured abroad with much lower labor costs.
Would I pay a higher cost to a company that manufactures all of their goods domestically? Probably not - although I do buy Red Wing shoes because they are consistently good quality and very durable. But by the same token, I could buy five or six pairs of similar black leather shoes from Wal-Mart for the same price.
-Trevor
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
1. Caps on non-real damages is a mixed bag - some companies would then assume such costs as a price of doing business. "We produce chainsaws with this potential defect. We anticipate x lawsuits from mishaps with a max of y penalty = operating margin. However, if we sell z chainsaws and the profit from Z exceeds the anticipated accidents multiplied by maximum lawsuits for that run (say every 100), we still make money."
2. Professionals are notoriously reluctant to harshly discipline one of their own. Medical review boards work fine in theory, but in practice they are less than punitive.
I recall a case in Florida that let a doctor off with a slap on the wrist for amputating the wrong leg. I'd have to do some digging to find specific case references, but instances like this make me extremely reluctant to discuss lawsuit caps on issues like medical malpractice.
Granted, this is an extreme example, but still...
-Trevor
Posted by Bean Counter (Member # 6001) on :
My College Campus (Drake University) has a Pizza Hut that has to lock up its garbage by corporate policy to keep homeless people from getting their throw away pizzas. That is about ten a night with just a slight burn on the cheese. It is weird. Our garbage is too good for you...
BC
Posted by Jar Head (Member # 7018) on :
The County I live in used to have a "Gut Wagon" that took deer and cattle hit on the road and took them to be butchered for the county home. But no more, they just push them off the road for the buzzards.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
In the 1950's the Navy used to pull into (I think tokyo harbor) Japan, and make an arrangement with a local madam and her brothel:
The "girls" stood at the end of the chow line on board ship, and the men brought their food trays to them. The girls would scrape the meat into one garbage can, the bread into another, and so on.
That was their payment. In return for this payment, the girls would take paint and brushes from the ship supply, and paint the ship.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
I read an article about how Walmart has applied a tremendous amount of pressure to the Vlasic pickle company, by buying gallon jars of pickles in such large quantities that Vlasic can't say no.
Walmart then sells these gallon jars for prices below what you'd pay for a quart jar of pickles in a supermarket. Consequently, Vlasic's supermarket sales have slumped, to the point where they actually rely on the profit from the sales of the gallon jars at Walmart, except that Walmart applies so much pressure to reduce prices, that Vlasic is essentially giving them the pickles with hardly any markup.
Can you say predatory pricing? (see Dilbert today)
The really sick part of all this, is that a gallon of pickles will go bad long before the average family can use them, so more than half the pickles are expected to be thrown away.
Posted by screechowl (Member # 2651) on :
I think Tony's Pizza in Salina (manufactures frozen pizza), KS greatly reduces price on less than perfect pizzas. I hear you can get a LOT of cheap pizza.
I don't know about dated stuff though.
Posted by Black Fox (Member # 1986) on :
Well the only thing you can actually blame is effeciency in a system. The current system in place makes it more effecient for Walmart to have the practices that they do. Most corporations put quite a bit of research into display and treatment of products. For the most part someone figured out they make money by having the practices that they have. I used to work at a large grocery store when I was a teenager and even slightly bruised or unattractive fruit was thrown into large barrels and then sold to local farms as feed. However at the same time even slightly damaged goods off the shelves were thrown into big grocery carts in the back which are then sold later at a big discount. They simply understood the fact that if someone sees a beat up store with some bad products it gives a bad impression of everything and less product is sold. However they still get some money out of everything.
That and though you can be angry at people that sue the legal system is in place to defend you! Though I do agree.. our legal practices seem a bit.. out of proportion now a days.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
One of the justifications for both economics and law as fields of study essential to implementing moral systems is that both deal with assigning costs to make desirable behaviors and outcomes more efficient and thus more likely to occur.
Both often lose sight of this, using their own methods to decide which outcomes are "desirable" and not acknowledging the circularity involved.
But efficiency entails, in part, assigning costs to those who receive the benefit. And systems that can identify inefficiencies such as these can help come up with better ways to allocate those costs in such a way as to encourage charity.
Dagonee
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
The other side of this is that dollars donated to feed the hungry go farther than they would if there weren't places like WalMart, Sams, etc.
I don't like giving my money to those places, but dollars/pound you get better deals there than at any other place.
If I were in charge of buying food for a charity and had to actually spend money to do it (rather than rely on donations) I'd go to Sams. It'd be difficult to justify any other choice if the goal was to buy the most food at the lowest price.
I worked in a food bank for awhile. We would sometimes get expired/rotted food and would have to toss it. We periodically had to go through the warehouse tossing out stuff that had rotted in the can or jar. But generally I think people donated stuff right after they bought it.
I've heard of places where that doesn't happen, though. Some people apparently use charity food drives as a way to clean out that rotten stuff in the back of the cupboard. Yuck!
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Seems to me that using a charity drive to rotate out the cans in the emergency food stash is a pretty good idea, though, especially if you do it every year with cans that have at least half their shelf life left.
Dagonee
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
(((Farmgirl)))
Posted by Jar Head (Member # 7018) on :
I thought the point of a pickle is that it never goes bad... Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Dag, absolutely! If the cans/jars are not already showing signs of botulism toxin ("puffy" cans or jars on which the top has everted), then it's probably still good even after the "Best if used by" date.
But certainly if the stuff is in good condition and NOT past it's expiration, the food banks will take it and distribute it pretty quickly. They don't mind a bit if it's been sitting on your shelf for a dog year or two.
Opened packages are sometimes problematic. I mean, you buy the wrong kind of hot chocolate mix, use one pouch, hate it and donate the other 3 pouches... Some places will take and use that. Others will not. It all depends.
It's usually a good idea to ask first because there's nothing more frustrating, I think, than having to go through donated stuff throwing out the things that can't be accepted by that particular charity. You don't WANT to curse the donors for being blockheads, but it gets difficult sometimes to maintain perspective as the pile of usable stuff seems so much smaller than the pile of stuff you have to haul out to the dumpster.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Oooh. You mean people give away puffy cans? Yuck!
I always assumed the food banks need something packaged for resale in an unopened condition. So a carton with individual items with full nutrition info on each would be good, but otherwise no.
Dagonee
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote: I thought the point of a pickle is that it never goes bad...
The point of a pickle is that is is preserved better than an uncured cucumber. Canned food isn't supposed to go "bad" either. Actually, I've never encountered a can that was puffy.
Also, beef jerky isn't supposed to go bad, but these days it comes heat sealed with "ageless oxygen absorber" in the package. Why? Because old fashioned beef jerky is dry and tough, while newer beef jerky has a higher fat content, so it's chewy, but the fat goes rancid. A lot of things are that way. Old fashioned pickles may have stayed good longer, but as they started adding sugar and MSG and so forth to improve the flavor, the shelf life got shorter. (Checking a jar of pickles) Hmm. Refrigerate after opening.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote: The other side of this is that dollars donated to feed the hungry go farther than they would if there weren't places like WalMart, Sams, etc.
Yeah, but considering how many businesses Walmart has put out of business, it seems to me that if there were no Walmart, there would be less need to feed the hungry.
I don't go to Walmart, period.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote: I don't go to Walmart, period.
I knew there had to be something I agreed with Glenn on. Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
quote: Oooh. You mean people give away puffy cans? Yuck!
Yep. And opened packages of pasta, and half-empty boxes of cereal.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
Rivka:
quote: I knew there had to be something I agreed with Glenn on.
You know, I'm really bad at keeping track of personalities online. For all I know I've had a knock-down-drag out argument here with Rivka, and I don't even remember it. (I probably remember the argument, just not Rivka)
Seems like there ought to be a scorecard. Like, who's conservative, who's liberal, who's Mormon (on Hatrack, anyway), other religions, atheist, and other distinguishing characteristics. Like one of those personality tests in Cosmopolitan.
Then we could all know who we agree with, and who we don't.
Posted by WheatPuppet (Member # 5142) on :
When I was working at a grocery store, we had to throw out all of the salad bar stuff every Sunday so the whole refrigerator/container things could be cleaned. It was probably close to 50 pounds of food that I had to throw out. It was state law, and it sickened me. I've done few things as uncomfortable as throwing out that much good food.
Happlily, one night a member of the local house of representitives came in and saw me doing it. I told him the law, and he seemed like he wanted to do something about it. I havn't kept track of it, to be honest.
Is anyone else kinda creeped out by Wal Mart? I can't stay in there for more than 20 minutes or so, just because it's so... dreary.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Walmart minutes are 23% longer than regular minutes.
Posted by WheatPuppet (Member # 5142) on :
By virtue of what? Is it that their watches don't keep time (because my WalMart watch doesn't) or is it due to a relatavistic time dialation, or possibly becuase their time is 25% cheaper and manufactured in the third world?
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Smarter minds than mine have puzzled over this phenomenon. It appears that just before he died, Sam Walton purchased at bulk prices the entire fabric of space-time and they've been using it to make clothing and soft-goods ever since. Unfortunately, this was, as you might suspect, some very cheaply made space-time fabric and it has started to fray at the edges and even run in places.
People caught near this deteriorating stuff naturally start to gravitate into the event horizon and only through sheer force of will does anyone ever make it out of a Walmart alive these days.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
*grin* Hi, Glenn. I don't believe we're ever had a knock-down fight, actually. I just noticed the past couple days that I disagreed with a number of your posts -- usually after other posters had expressed their disagreement far more eloquently that I would have. Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
Ok, you got my curiosity up. On what issues?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Quick guess - almost anything having to do with God, for one.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
Ok Rivka, was Dagonee's response more eloquent than yours would have been?
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
*grin* Almost always. And since it was on Saturday, when I'm not online until after dark, it was definitely more timely.
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Hi, Glenn. I don't believe we're ever had a knock-down fight, actually. I just noticed the past couple days that I disagreed with a number of your posts -- usually after other posters had expressed their disagreement far more eloquently that I would have.