What’s in a Dog’s Breakfast? Considering the Social, Veterinary and Environmental Implications of Feeding Food Scraps to Pets Using Three Australian Surveys (original) (raw)
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Food waste in Australian households: Why does it occur?
2013
Food waste has become a major issue, adding to environmental degradation, economic impoverishment and social tensions around the world. This article examines what is currently known in the literature about why food waste occurs at the household level. After reviewing what is known about the relevant demographic characteristics and broad behavioural drivers, these findings are applied to examine the potential causes of, and solutions to, household food waste in Australia. This research suggests that high levels of food waste may emerge from the interaction of activities associated with planning, shopping, storage, preparation and consumption of food. The literature also indicates the significance of behavioural drivers such as: lack of awareness; lack of negative economic impact; high quality standards; insufficient purchase planning; over-purchasing and cooking; lack of kitchen skills; high sensitivity to food safety; and changing meal plans. Although many of the findings presented ...
Sustainability
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Estimating informal household food waste in developed countries: The case of Australia
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Food waste is a global problem. In Australia alone, it is estimated that households throw away AU$5.2 billion worth of food (AU$616 per household) each year (Baker, Fear et al. 2009). Developed countries have formal waste management systems that provide measures of food waste. However, much remains unknown about informal food waste disposal routes and volumes outside of the formal system. This paper provides indicative metrics of informal food waste by identifying in detail five of the dominant informal food waste disposal routes used by Australian households: home composting, feeding scraps to pets, sewer disposal, giving to charity, and dumping or incineration. Informal waste generation rates are then calculated from three primary data sources, in addition to data from previous Australian and UK surveys, using a weighted average method in conjunction with a Monte-Carlo simulation.
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Animal lovers normally contribute to significant harm inflicted upon nonhuman animals. This is because dogs and cats are fed animal-derived foods, which are the product of death and suffering. This chapter presents an argument suggesting that, typically, people have an obligation to feed their companions a vegan diet. The claim is then defended against three challenges—from dignity, naturalness, and freedom, respectively—that are unsuccessful. A final challenge, from health, is more problematic, and a four-pronged approach to companion veganism is defended. For dogs, people’s moral and political obligations roughly coincide: individually and collectively, people should switch their dogs to vegan diets. For cats, people’s obligations diverge: while individually they should minimize the impact of their companions’ diets, as members of society they have an obligation to come to a greater understanding of how the negative impact of cats’ diets can be fully eliminated.
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Sustainability, 2021
More than half of food waste is generated at the household level, and therefore, it is important to tackle and attempt to solve the problem of consumer food waste. This study aimed to identify factors differentiating high food wasters from low food wasters. A large-scale survey was conducted in Lithuania. A total of 1001 respondents had participated in this survey and were selected using a multi-stage probability sample. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire. Binary logistic regression modelling was used to analyse the effect of socio-demographics, food-related behaviours, attitudes towards food waste, and knowledge of date labelling on levels of food waste. Impulse buying, inappropriate food preparation practices, non-consumption of leftovers, lack of concern about food waste, and worry about food poisoning were related to higher food waste. On the other hand, correct planning practices and knowledge of date labelling were related to l...
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The emergence of trends such as veganism and vegetarianism have promoted the reduction of meat consumption and thus agricultural production worldwide, about-facing the ecological footprint of humans. However, this progress gets continuously overruled by the worldwide increasing ecological paw print of the pet food industry. Ecological paw print refers to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions by meat production for the pet food industry. In an era of Internet and great communication technologies, online advertisements have the power to facilitate a shift in consumer purchase intentions towards more sustainable pet food. To promote the reduction of meat production for the pet food industry and about-face the worldwide growing ecological paw print. This study examined the potential influence of brand-specific claims in online advertisements, social norms and trust on consumer purchase intentions towards dog food brands. An online survey was conducted including an experiment as participants were randomly assigned to either one of two manipulations or a control group, measuring the effect of health claims and environmentally beneficial claims in online advertisements on purchase intentions towards dog food. Within the survey, dispositional trust and anthropomorphism regarding dogs were measured as personal traits. The concepts social norms and situational trust were included in the analysis as potential mediators. Overall, the findings revealed that health claims lead to higher purchase intentions towards dog food brands amongst dog owners regardless of any further information on the product and the pressure of social norms compared to environmentally beneficial or neutral claims. Situational trust in a brand was found to be independent of brand-specific claims but does positively influence purchase intentions as an independent variable. Furthermore, a potential relation between anthropomorphism towards dogs and purchase intentions was not found to be significant.
The meat of the matter: a rule of thumb for scavenging dogs? View supplementary material
Animals that scavenge in and around human settlements need to utilise a broad range of resources, and thus generalist scavengers are likely to be better adapted to human-dominated habitats. In India, free-ranging dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) live in close proximity with humans in diverse habitats, from forest fringes to metropolises, and are heavily dependent on humans for their food. It has been argued that the ability to digest carbohydrates was one of the driving forces for dog domestication. Though dogs are better adapted to digest carbohydrates than other canids, pet dogs show a clear preference for animal proteins. Our observations on streets of urban and semi-urban localities show that the free-ranging dogs are scavengers which primarily receive carbohydrate-rich food from humans. Their source for animal protein is typically garbage bins and leftovers, and such resources are rare. Using a series of field-based experiments, we test if the free-ranging dogs have adapted to a generalist scavenging lifestyle by losing preference for animal protein. Our experiments show that the free-ranging dogs, which are descendants of the decidedly carnivorous gray wolf (Canis lupus lupus), have retained a clear preference for meat, which is manifested by their choice of anything that smells of meat, irrespective of the actual nutrient content. The plasticity in their diet probably fosters efficient scavenging in a competitive environment, while a rule of thumb for preferentially acquiring specific nutrients enables them to sequester proteins from the carbohydrate-dominated environment.