Negative Effects On Fast Food

States alone, 30% of all food is thrown away each year. That's about 161 billion dollars worth of

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.

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.

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

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

Additionally, Rabin mentions that among the many negatives associated with food waste is the added strain through excess consumption and production that is placed on the freshwater resources. About 25 percent of all freshwater consumed annually is in the United States is associated with discarded food. This volume of 25 percent is comparable to the size of Lake Erie. That is a large amount of water! The article also talks about some of the resources that are wasting food and water. These include grocery stores, schools, farmers, and restaurants just to name a few. If everyone made an effort to reduce food

Fast food, the highly addictive food that many people can not go a day without eating. In our society today fast food has become the “norm” when we are looking for something to eat, causing our society to accept it as something to be eaten ALL the time. Fast food can affect our bodies more than most people comprehend. According to the United States Healthful Food Council, they say 8 out of 10 people eat fast food monthly and half say they even eat it weekly. By ingesting these large amounts of fatty, salty, and sweet foods, children and adults are becoming increasingly obese. Fast food causes long term negative health effects and is a direct contributor to America 's increasing obesity problems.

Wasting food is a bad habit that affects all of society and we continue to implicate ourselves in the problem. Of the total of food loss that is going on about 40 percent is in the household. Overall a typical household of four loses about 600 dollars in food a year. (Jones 11)

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

Food waste in the United States is happening as we speak. There are many different factors that contribute to food waste, but one factor that is not really mentioned is food waste in schools. A research lead by Cohen Jf an Assistant Professor, Merrimack College; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health found that schools across the nation waste an estimated $1.2 billion of food each year, which is enough to give every man, woman, and child in Canada $33.33. In addition, nearly 37% of fresh fruits, 33% of vegetables, 44% of grains, and 32% of milk are wasted in schools (Smith). Furthermore, a study found that while children placed more fruits and vegetables on their trays - as required by the USDA mandates put in place in 2012 - they consumed fewer of them. The amount of food wasted increased by 56 percent, the researchers found. So, because of this regulation, students have to grab unwanted items from the cafeteria even though they do not want them, which is one of the main reason why many of the food products end up in the trash.

We are already at that time of the year when Christmas decorations are put a month before the actual christmas season. This mean that soon there will be the “feast time” for the Thanksgiving, Christmas, End of the year get together dinners at differents places, it could be at : the grandparents’ house, the boyfriend’s parents house, the friend’s house, and many more. During this period of time, it will be in the winter season when we will be wearing big sweaters and how much we eat won’t matter to us anymore since we need to consume more calories to fight the cold, plus the “summer body” season is over. Last but not least, it’s finally the 2 month of the year when food waste increases drastically, that time of the year when the U.S creates 3 times more food waste at the holiday season than the rest of months in the year. (Brady parag. 1) Only for Thanksgiving tradition, 293 million dollars of turkey waste are generated per year; that’s around 204 million pound of turkey meat.

Using all products we have, storing it better, having proper meal plans are some simple steps we can take to change this factor of food waste. As chefs, we have a huge responsibility to use our creativity and use all our abilities to minimize and prevent food waste such as using ingredients or parts of ingredients that people don’t like to make beautiful creations. We should ne able to focus on the ugly carrots and misshaped vegetables that are always rejected from people who buys goods from the stores. We should always keep track and minimize the food we throw out each day in the restaurant. We should think about the products we use and really try to make a change in this food system.

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