Nothing Is Food Until Someone Eats It1

This article uses Aristotle’s idea of potential and actual to argue that post-harvest loss is food that never happened. It looks at Nigeria’s reported loss of 50 to 60 percent of produce, worth about ₦14.4 trillion a year, and at why estimates disagree. It then covers three ways of slowing spoilage: the pot-in-pot cooler, solar cold rooms and solar drying. It treats the market glut as a stag hunt. It also reports a test of my plastic-covered arch dryer on pepper and radish. The dryer was fastest on radish, open sun was fastest on pepper, and the dryer scored best with tasters on colour, smell and texture. The article ends by calling for loss registers ahead of the 2030 global target.