Do fruits and vegetables die ?

      According to European Commission, 20% of total produced food are wasted daily and in particular, Belgian food waste is the second largest in Europe. An average of 7 tons of good food per minute is directly discarded. Yet, another harsh reality is that 15.9% of Belgians still live below the poverty line and cannot afford quality food at all. Huge food waste has caused great harm to our society and nature. How to deal with food waste has become an important issue in academia.

      Therefore, I chose CollectMet, a NGO located in Brussels that aims to reduce the food waste by collecting expired food and distributed them to refugees, as my fieldwork site. This research attempts to follow the lifeline of vegan food to find an alternative way to save 'aging' food, to reveal the cruel reality they are facing and to deconstruct the concept 'expiration date'. In the end, this research suggests a new model for human beings to interact with aging fruits and vegetables, effectively alleviate the phenomenon of excessive food waste, and protect this planet where humans and non-humans inhabit together.

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This research is based on my preliminary theoretical framework on the dichotomy of garbage and non-garbage, which can be found here.