Food delivery, a problem for our environment and health

Translated by Silvia Faletto

Today it is very trendy to order food delivery, perhaps because we don’t want or have time to cook, or we’ve guests at home and we don’t know what to put on the table.

We've all experienced coming home in the night after work and being too tired to cook, just wishing to relax in front of the TV, watching a good movie or our favourite TV series while enjoying a tasty dinner on the couch—and that's when food delivery becomes the best choice.

The specialist Giorgio Donegani asserts that “the fact that you can choose a restaurant, decide on a menu, and pay for it directly online with just a few clicks of the mouse helps make food delivery even more appealing and turns it into a habit that’s bound to stick around even after the pandemic is over,” but typically, the last thing we think about is the quality of the food we’ve just requested.

Unfortunately, when it's time to get food, laziness usually wins the day. We focus more on delivery speed rather than quality, taking the risk of ending up with something on our dish which is not quite to our taste—and we might end up regretting our choice. When we think about food delivery, delivery speed automatically springs to our minds—a feature that takes priority over the quality of the meal: we agree to eat poor-quality food, if it’s delivered to our doorstep quickly.

Considering that main buyers of food delivery are “young people between the 18 and 34 age group (57% vs. 47% of the total) or those who are home alone (39%), while older adults, aged 35 to 54, are the ones who most rely on this service when they work at the office (10% vs. 7% of the total population),” this raises the issue of junk food that people risk consuming if they’re not careful about quality.

Those few simple clicks make ordering home – delivered food super easy: this convenience often leads us to rely exclusively on a photo—which we usually don’t even know if it’s real or not—to ignore healthy eating habits, and to pick unsafe and unhealthy food just because delivery is fast, with the outcome that, in time, stomach problems and food intolerances increase.

Uncontrolled and unhealthy home-delivered food also means pollution. Just think about the delivery person’s journey to our home, the containers—usually made of plastic—used for the meals, and all the leftovers that, if not eaten, become a huge waste of food.

Food delivery services have conditioned us to expect large quantities of food available at any hour and in a very quick time. Today, speed counts more than quality—as we’ve already said—without taking into consideration the pollution it produces and all the damage we’re doing to ourselves, to nature, to the environment.

Furthermore, we should also be very careful about any bacteria that may be present in the meals: we don't know if or how delivery riders preserve the meals they carry on. Sometimes, even a sudden brake or an accidental bump is enough to spoil the food by the time it’s handed over. We don't know if the rucksacks in which riders keep food are clean, or if these are properly sterilised and daily sanitised; nor do we know if the containers are truly leak-proof. There have been instances in which customers have complained about deformed or dirty containers.

Of course, it's difficult to determine the cleaning standards and good faith of a rider or those who prepared the meal, but we know that “more than 200 colonies of bacteria were found on the base and side walls of the box”. For this reason, it’s always a good idea to check who’s handling the food transport, ensure proper cleaning, and maintain correct hygiene practices when dealing with meals.

According to a study by Gambero Rosso, “no one systematically monitors food hygiene and safety during transport”. For this reason, to the issue of food hygiene must be given the highest priority, just as we must be concerned about the environment and nature: any plastic container incorrectly disposed of can cause severe damage to plants and animals.

In conclusion, we can say that food delivery presents a range of problems, especially when there's poor cleanliness and a lack of hygiene, if the food delivered consists exclusively of junk food, and in case of usage of polluting plastic packaging. However, it can also be a part of the answer, provided that due attention is given to cleanliness, promoting healthy nutrition, and choosing eco-friendly packaging. 

It doesn’t take a lot to change stuff, but we must really want it.  

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