Food Wastage

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.

From farm to table getting our food and produce to the consumer is a tricky task. Even with all the planning millions of food ends up wasted a year. Many steps are already taken to reduce the amount of food being wasted but are they enough? In America alone 200 to 250 pounds is wasted per person per year! According the world resources institute “32 percent of the world’s food was never consumed in 2009”.

Have you ever stopped to question what happens after food waste ends up as landfill? The food waste breaks down into methane and carbon dioxide (greenhouse gases) which poses risks to our health if greater amounts are released. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated the carbon footprint of wasted food to be equivalent to 3.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Further, the storing of food waste occupies a lot of land - agricultural land. Food waste fills the MSG six times! Not only is land utilized for the production of crops now unavailable, the habitats of animals are also taken up, leading to a loss of biodiversity. Because of our careless and wasteful behavior, animals are dying. It is a

We were not actually discussing the issue of food waste but were talking about the amount of food families in different countries consume in a week. In order to make it clear my professor showed us pictures of different families from around the world with the amount of food they consumed in a week. The families in developing and underdeveloped countries consumed the least amount of food processed and the most out of those families were from Democratic Republic of Congo which is not very surprising but what was the most astonishing fact was that the United States ranked the number one spot in the amount of food intake per week. Comparative to the world’s two most populous countries in the world China and India, United States consume way far more food than it needs. All the surplus food does not serve any benefit to the hungry and poor, instead it is delivered to a dumpster. For example, at a farmers market in Asheville, North Carolina all the unsold tomatoes are dumped (Elizabeth Roytes). These unsold fresh tomatoes are dumped not because they are unsold or are not edible but because there isn’t enough space to store these

Now, more than ever, people are wasteful of the one thing we require most; food. We dispose of food at such a rate that it literally becomes waste which others

I think that us, in America waste much more food than we would like to admit, and it is hurting our economy and it is not helping other countries that need that food. In New York City food waste contributes to about one third of the total garbage that they have in their landfills, and dumps. When we throw away and waste food, we are also wasting the water that is in that food. The foods with the most water in them is fruits and vegetables. I think that we need to cut down on the food that we waste or we are going to be in serious trouble with famine and drought in the future.

I think our food system has gotten to a point of devastation as well. There are people that go hungry every single day when we have grocery stores stocked to the brim of food. I have watched from

Every year, prosperous countries tend to throw out large amounts of edible food. This wasted food primarily comes from people throwing out fresh food at home and at restaurants as well as large companies, such as grocery stores, throwing out edible food. Many people and companies would confess to being guilty of this. Throwing out a piece of fruit or leftovers may seem harmless but it eventually adds up. The worlds large population makes this an issue creating enormous numbers of waste that could be food for starving people.

Every year in the United States and around the world many billions of pounds of food are wasted. Roughly 50 percent of all produce in the United States is thrown    away—some 60 million tons (or $160 billion). People are unable to get enough food for themselves and their families.

The world will run out of food in 2050 if we keep living the way we are now. These concerns are mainly due to things like climate change, rise in population and the amount of water use in our daily lives. This sounds laughable but if we don’t make changes we could be heading into a catastrophe.

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.

Attention-getter: A study done by the World Food Programme shows over 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That's about one in nine people on earth. Another study done by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations shows roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year approximately 1.3 billion tonnes gets lost or wasted. This adds up to about $680 billion in loss of food alone. There should not be this much food wasted in the world with so many hungry people we have.

The issue of food waste is one that many people might not consider to be serious, but it is critical to the environment that a solution is devised. Fortunately, there are many simple things that people all over the world can do to keep the Earth healthy. First, if farmers and agricultural employees would prevent overgrazing, pesticide pollution, and over plowing, water would be saved, and the general health of the

In America, we are constantly surrounded by abundance. Food is a prevalent waste item in the United States. Most people do not think about the resources it took to produce, transport, and prepare the food they throw away. Our food waste is not actually just trash; it is the key to human survival. Ordinary consumers can change the future with one small action: to stop wasting food. Actions at the individual level can decrease food waste and feed those in need. Twenty five percent of purchased food is thrown away. (TED) Often this is because food has spoiled, but it can be for other reasons such as oversupply, misread labels, or individual consumer shopping and eating habits. http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3347e/i3347e.pdf

Food is one of the basic needs of a human being to survive. All of us depend on food for having a good health, therefore with the lack of food many people will be starving and malnourished.