Food Shortages And Its Effects On Eating Habits Essay

The book, American Wasteland: How American Throw Away Nearly Half of Its Food, written by Jonathan Bloom, deeply describes the situation of food waste in America. The author, Bloom, starts off the book by mentioning that each day America squanders enough food tone fill up the Rose Bowl, the football stadium in Pasadena, California (xi). Bloom even brings out a specific number to prove that how much food were wasted in the United States, which is 160 billion pounds annually (xii). From that description and figure, we can see that food waste problem is really serious today.

The USDA claims that each year, 25.9 million tons of America’s food is thrown away, the equivalent to a quarter of the total amount produced. Nationally, the wasted food is a damaging financial setback, amounting to $1 billion just to get rid of during a time of ascending food prices, nonetheless (Oliver, 2007). Food waste has skyrocketed since 1970 at an astonishing 50% increase rate, yet according to the FAO, one-sixth of America doesn’t get enough to eat.

While everyone may love to go out and enjoy a fine meal with friends and family, most will never stop to think the process of how the food came about, or the production thereof. John Oliver’s piece on “Food Waste” outlines all the problems of food waste and how they can impact society, animals, nature, and even the farmers who harvest the produce. America and its businesses should try to decrease the amount of food being wasted. By doing so, not only are we a contributing factor to help reduce waste, save time and money, but we are also aiding the less-fortunate in a society, while still saving natural resources and the planet as a whole.

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.

Consumers have become increasingly detached from their food as America’s food system grows larger and continues to ruin the environment. The main problem is that most consumers do not know how their consumption habits affect the ecosystem around them. Nor do they know about how their food was produced. Information about how and where the food is being produced and wasted is essential, so people can shop responsibly. Short of legislation, Americans make choices at the grocery store. It is essential for all Americans to cast in a vote with their dollars to change the way that food is produced in the United States resulting in more sustainable food being more accessible in the aisles of the grocery store for all Americans.

Looking at the Impacts of Food Waste, In general by wasting food that’s mean we are wasting our money but in different way. . At the same time it is impacting us financially it’s also playing a huge role in the problems we see happening to our environment. The US Environment Protection Agency said, “Generating food waste has significant economic as well as environmental consequences. Whether you’re an individual, family, or business, chances are a considerable portion of your budget goes towards buying food — either for you, your family, or your customers. And since we now throw away more food than anything else, that means we are throwing away a lot of our money.” (“Basics,” par. 2) They went on to say that wasting food does more than impact our economy; it also impacts our environmental severely. We need to look at other countries and see what they’re doing with their food waste mistakes and do them same in our country the

“Globally, we throw out about 1.3 billion tons of food a year, or a third of all the food that we grow” (Sengupta). In the United States 33% is from agriculture, 11% from postharvest, 10% from processing, 8% from retail, and 39% from consumption. Consumers are the majority of our waste, but there's not a lot of ways to prevent this.

Nutrition is important for healthy life. Many people are still hungry around the world even though there is mass production of food. This is because of unhealthy food production. In today’s world we see many obese people because of high intake of high fat and cholesterol containing food. It is important to have a healthy diet/ nutritional intake for individuals to have good foundation for physical and mental health. Now a day’s healthy food is getting more expensive rather than unhealthy food. Poor people are forced to eat unhealthy food, while the rich can afford to eat whatever the please. Food insecurity is caused by individuals not having healthy food for their families due to their low income or political and

In the U.S., we are blessed with a sufficient amount of resources, especially food. Food is literally at everyone’s fingertips; people can order food efficiently off of their cellphones, and due to this abundance, it has caused many Americans to be very wasteful with their food. According to feedingamerica.org, “An estimated 25 – 40% of food grown, processed and transported in the US will never be consumed.” Not only that, but rotting food causes more greenhouses gases to be released in the air

Food insecurity is defined as when an individual has inconsistent and inadequate access to a sufficient amount of nutritious food preventing him or her from maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It is typically associated with limited financial  It is sometimes classified as a public health concern and is currently a growing issue as the number of individuals suffering from food insecurity is increasing according to Statistics Canada.   Food insecurity has its greatest impact on the individual itself and an impact on the Government of Ontario and mayors of the cities within Ontario.  It is an important issue as it can more issues to branch out from it  such as famine (long term hunger), increased health care costs and more. Thus, food insecurity has many impacts on the person itself and it can cause more issues to build upon this one issue.

Envision the intriguing aromas and aspects of all the delectable, appetizing, and savory foods the world has to offer. Now imagine those foods being taken, scarcely eaten, and then banished to a life in the trash thereafter, where they cannot be consumed anymore. Now proceed to think about all of the resources, time, effort, and money that goes into producing food, it all would have been for nothing. Discarding edible food leads to billions of dollars of food lost, along with creating additional trash. Consumers can do simple things to create less food waste.

Many people wonder how much food is actually wasted each year in the United States. In the article, How Much Food do We Waste Every Year? written by Casey Chan, he reveals facts about the percentages of food that are wasted by certain groups and businesses each year in a video produced by Visually. Approximately $165 billion is spent on wasted food each year in the United States; 6 percent of which is wasted by grocery stores, 15 percent is produced by restaurants and bakeries, and 25 percent is produced from the average person household. That may be a large number, but if American’s were to save just 15 percent of all of the food wasted, it would be able to feed 25 million starving people in the United States (Chan, 2013).

What is the definition of food insecurity? The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines food insecurity as not being able to acquire nutritionally adequate and safe food during the course of a year (D.C. Hunger, 2014). For instance, there are several factors that contribute to food insecurity in the oldest-of-old population. Issues such as poverty, lack of access, chronic illness, and functional ability.

Every year, billions of pounds of food are wasted throughout the world. It is important to realize that this is an enormous problem. This is a problem by cause of countless people could have prevented it by just starting their meal with less food. Misunderstanding the consequences of food waste, people don’t even understand how much food they waste throughout their lives. Food that we throw out results in so abounding problems and wastes of needed resources. Wasted food is a strong loss as a result of wasted water, money and food for others in need.

We all remember that time going to dinner with our grandparents, them wanting to order a nice meal for us. Then looking at it, and trying our hardest to eat everything, even the fat. Most of our grandparents grew up in the "Baby Boomer Generation" or "The Silent Generation" where they were taught to eat everything on their plate even if it did not taste good. To today's standard, people think that the "Millennials" waste food. Food is to be considered a loss if it is thrown away or allowed to spoil. Twenty-five million tons of food go to waste a year by grocery stores, restaurants and various food vendors. According to Food Waste "food waste refers to the intentional rejection and discard of edible food that occurs on the retail and consumption side of the supply chain." Consumers in America are guilty for throwing out another 43 percent of food resulting in twenty-seven million tons of wasted food. About $218 billions of food is wasted yearly in the United States. Seventeen percent of food loss comes from comes from manufacturers such as farms. Millions of tons of food go to waste each year, leaving causes and effects of food waste and people wondering what the state, business and individuals can do to help reduce food waste.