Challenges Facing A Growing Food Shortage And Food Waste Problem

The world continues to face a wide-scale food crisis. The effects of this crisis reach from the farmers who grow and raise the food to the very system of laws that are in place to govern the system itself. Food giants are reaching deep into their pockets for lobbying in order to take advantage of both the producers and the consumer all in the name of profit. Moreover, farmers are being driven to suicide, and the ecosystem’s livelihood is treading a fine line. Both Michael Pollan and Raj Patel bring to light these problems and offer suggestions to help lessen their severity. Though there are many philosophies on which they both agree, they both have their own ideas to fight back. Pollan seeks to challenge the consumer as an individual while

About fifty million Americans are not certain when their next meal will be and in a society filled with food insecurities, the fact there this so much food waste is perplexing (King, 2015). Around the world, about two billion tons of food is wasted through production, transportation, distribution and retail, and post consumer (Glickman 2013). This amount of food

Food waste is an environmental, economic, and ethical problem that can lead to less calorie intake and unnecessary damage of our assets. Individual behavior can redesign food waste at home and lead to bigger changes in the ecosystem. The problem is Americans throw out more food than glass, paper, and plastic. Also about 25% of food grown, processed, and transported in the US will never be consumed. When food is disposed in a landfill it rots and becomes a significant source of methane— a potent greenhouse gas with 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.

The food industry has a large impact on individuals and will affect wider communities in the future. The rush of today’s society has pushed food production to become more commercialized with prepackaged/premade based foods. For numerous reasons such as time, work and costs of living, people are wanting meals that are cheap, fast, easy and don’t require much effort. This is due to many obligations and priorities in life that are put above

The different sections of the book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” embody the flawed system that America is currently facing, particularly the food industry. There is a limited understanding of what constitute an ideal meal, and process of prepping one. It could be that the information available are not clear and direct, or most consumers are choosing to overlook the lurking dangers behind the accessible food products. Either way, it is evident that most consumers have fell out of touch with knowing what they eat. The book provides a precise, comprehensive, and intuitive summary of the elements on the definition of foods. “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” is written in a direct, clear, and informative manner for the general audience, including farmers, consumers, and those who actively involve with processing foods. Readers will be able to establish a deeper understanding of the evolution of collecting food, and how that has affected the choices of putting together a perfect meal.

After watching the Food Inc. documentary I now look at our nation’s food industry differently. As a consumer I feel that there are many things being hidden from us. Nowadays the top four companies for meat control about eighty percent of the market. There’s only about three or four companies controlling everything and they are more powerful than ever. A majority of these companies are putting profit over consumer’s health. They are not considerate about the health and safety of the food produced or about the animals being raised. We have bigger and better food now but we have also have obesity, and diabetes problems and many other health related deficiencies that use to not be as big of an issue back then.

Should food background be important to us? The article The Pleasures of Eating by Wendell Berry states that for us to eat responsibly, we need to be free, and for us to be free we must know about our food. He says that you should not let anybody control your food and its sources or at least know where your food comes from and know what you are eating. I agree with Wendell Berry because I feel that we cannot be manipulated by the big food companies and just look at food as just food. Many food consumers buy their food without knowing about it.

From the moment in time which marked the emergence of the human race, food has been an integral part of society. It has served as more than just sustenance aiding in the formation of cultures, civilizations, and technologies. However as the human mind evolved, so too did views on the value of food. The degradation of these views has resulted in between 1.3 and 2.2 billion tons of food being wasted globally each year (Finn et al. 2). Most Americans are guilty of having to thrown away a forgotten piece of food that has spoiled, but the problem is far bigger than that. Annually thirty-four million tons of food waste finds its way into American landfills (Buzby et al. 2). Unfortunately a majority of American citizens are ignorant to this fact. These citizens perceive the food they seen thrown away as the lost of a few dollar at the most and therefore not a serious problem. However, a large number of the United States’ social, economic, and environmental issues which need to be understood and addressed can be attributed to food waste.

People can not survive without consuming food which is a vital part of the human’s life; they get benefits from food which gives them strength and continues life. The demand increasing on food caused the growth of the number of the food industries who provide products for people. It’s common knowledge that the food industry is a business which seeks profits at first. According to the article “The Pleasures of Eating”, the author Wendell Berry who “is among the first public’s attention to industrialized farming and the ethical and environmental problems of our system of producing food”(36), says that the food industrialists persuade people to consume foods which are already processed, and “they will grow, deliver, and cook your food and beg you to eat ... Because they have found no profitable way to do so”(37). Wendell also claims that the food industry’s “overriding concerns are not quality and health, but volume and price”(39). Nowadays, many food

Many businesses waste food especially by overstocking. In farmer’s markets many farmers overstock their crates with produce to have appeal to the buyers. Delaney Zayac gives us an example that if he would have sold more chard if people saw more of it in the crate compared to seeing only some (Last Week Tonight). This is because many people have the assumption that if it’s the last one there must be something wrong with it. With that being the case many farmers overstock produce so that it takes away that assumption and people would buy their product. But overstocking also causes food waste, with farmers overstocking their produce to make it look appealing to buyers they

Have you ever thought food waste is a really severe problem? I think food waste is a big problem because a lot of families are without food and I don’t want families to starve. Up to forty percent of food in the United States is wasted. Also one in eight families struggle to put food on the table. Article two. Sixty-two million tons of food is wasted every year. Globally up to one-third of all food is spoiled. Article one. Food waste is the biggest occupant in America's landfills. 160 billion dollars is wasted on food waste. Article three.

Since the beginning of time, food has had an enormous effect on our lives. Although this is true, the ways in which we obtain our food has changed greatly from the past to the present. Before all the supermarkets and fast food restaurants began popping up rapidly in past years, people would have to hunt their own food. Back then you would know exactly where you’re food was coming from because you were the one who obtained it. Today though, most people have no idea where their food came from. The object of food itself, is seen as yet another opportunity to make money to these companies instead of a simple necessity to human life. People have the right to know how their food is being processed and and being prepared. The methods of the food industry can clearly be seen as enigmatic, unacceptable, and immoral.

There are billions of people struggling every day to have enough to eat, and billions of tons of food being tossed in the garbage, food waste is gaining increasing awareness as a serious environmental and economic issue. Research shows that about 60 million metric tons of food is wasted a year in the United States, with an estimated value of $162 billion. About 32 million tons of it end up in landfills, at a cost of about $1.5 billion a year to local government this economic crisis is worldwide! My research estimates that a third of all the food produced in the world is never consumed, and the total cost of that food waste could be as high as $400 billion a year. The food discarded by retailers and consumers in the most developed countries would be more than enough to feed all of the world’s hungry people, but it is not just those countries that have problems with food waste, it is also an issue in African countries like South Africa. The problem is expected to grow worse as the world’s population increases, unless actions are taken to reduce the waste. Food waste is not only a social cost, but it contributes to growing environmental problems like global warming, experts say, with the production of food consuming vast quantities of water, fertilizer and land. The fuel that is burned to process, refrigerate and transport it also adds to the environmental cost. Most food waste is thrown away in landfills, where it decomposes and emits methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

In the past fifty years, there has been such a vast change in the Industrial Food Industry. Food went from being grown naturally to being processed and packaged for convenience and cheapness. This is where the problem starts, and the greed for money is to blame. The industry has been altered in order to find convenience in making product faster because we all know, time is money. It has been altered in a manner of scamming to get all you can out of as little as possible to of course, save money. It has all become a game of money and profit rather than right and wrong and I have found more than enough examples to

Coxe has studied the sector for more than 35 years as a strategist for BMO Financial Group. He says it didn’t have to come to this. “We’ve got a situation where there has been no incentive to allocate significant new capital to agriculture or to develop new technologies to dramatically expand crop output.”