49 Times People Absolutely Won The Food Lottery (New Pics)

According to the Department of Agriculture, billions of pounds of fruits and vegetables go to waste every year, which is a whopping 30 to 40 percent of the food supply chain in the US. The USDA estimates that 1/3 of all produce from local farming sources is left uneaten. This equals 161 billion dollars’ worth of waste.

There are many reasons why this estimate is so huge. One of them has to do with aesthetic reasons: when food is deemed unattractive, it’s not being sold. Think of a bruised apple, a quirky-shaped carrot, and odd-looking bananas. These odd "creatures" of nature are known as "ugly produce" and apparently it’s a big hit at the moment.

Bored Panda contacted Sarah Phillips, the CEO and founder of Ugly Produce Is Beautiful, to find out more about the ugly produce movement.

“Every year, some 2.9 trillion pounds of food never gets consumed and it’s enough to feed nearly 800 million people worldwide.” The ugly produce movement is not just about consuming imperfect fruits and vegetables, but rather about minimizing food waste.

Sarah says that the ugly produce movement seeks to invoke change in the way people eat food.Her advice is to “ask your local grocer to bring in uglier produce to sell at a discount and support local farmers.” Sarah assures us that “farmers by nature aren't wasters and they feed ugly produce to livestock, cook with it, and give it away, or sell it at farmers' markets.” And we could take an example from them.

Meanwhile, in the supermarkets, people see perfect apples, oranges, and bananas that are designed in a way that’s attractive to people. Abhi Ramesh, the CEO of another ugly produce start-up named Misfits Market, told Vox that “historically, grocery stores haven’t wanted to stock anything that isn’t attractive, and so people have gotten used to produce looking a certain way.” And consuming imperfect-looking produce is a way to break such a habit.