Why Food Waste Matters, and How to Curb It

A healthy food culture values food from farm to table and back to the soil. In this interview with Nourish, journalist Jonathan Bloom, author of American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It), explains how food waste squanders ecological resources and money. He also shares how families and food producers can reduce, recycle, and reuse that waste to feed more people and give back to the environment.

How much food do Americans waste, and where does it go?
Jonathan Bloom: Americans waste 40 percent of the food we grow and raise, when you look at the calories produced versus calories consumed. It’s staggering. As for how that happens, the short answer is that a decent chunk is squandered at each step of the food chain. Unfortunately, of the food thrown out, 97 percent goes straight into the landfill. Food rotting in landfills produces methane emissions, which contribute to climate change.

Why should we be concerned about food waste?
Jonathan Bloom: In addition to the issue of methane gas, wasted food represents a real squandering of precious resources. In particular, the large amounts of oil and water used to create our food go for naught when we waste as much as we do. Two percent of all US energy consumption goes to producing the food that we subsequently discard.

Food waste represents a $240 billion annual loss on a national level. Closer to home, trimming your household waste can amount to savings of more than $2,200 for the average of family of four.

It’s shameful to waste nearly half of our food when more Americans than ever before are food insecure. It’s all the more disgraceful considering that we throw out enough food to feed all of the world’s hungry.

Next: Simple tips for reducing food waste

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Danuta W.

1:26AM PST on Feb 8, 2012

Thanks for posting .

send a green star

Michele W.

4:35AM PST on Jan 18, 2012

Thank you

1:10AM PST on Jan 18, 2012

Thanks for sharing.

Jennifer C.

5:50PM PST on Jan 17, 2012

Thanks for this great article.

Manojkumar B.

12:12AM PDT on Sep 27, 2011

thanks

Eternal G.

6:49PM PDT on Sep 25, 2011

Keep some chooks... they'll turn your scraps into delicious eggs!

Chinmayee J.

3:41AM PDT on Sep 13, 2011

Thanks for sharing - it's appalling how much food is wasted, not just in America but all around the world! I'm glad that people are putting thought and research into it, it's a very important issue and much can be done about it.

Bryan H.

3:42AM PDT on Sep 11, 2011

Study Will Make People Think Twice About How They Discard Food Waste

RACINE, WI, August 12, 2011 –/WORLD-WIRE/– Consider the apple core. From an environmental perspective, what’s the most responsible way to dispose of it, or a banana peel, or any food waste?

A new study about the impact of various food waste disposal systems has shown that putting it into a garbage disposer results in lower global warming potential than putting it in the trash and sending it to a landfill. That’s a key finding of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) commissioned by InSinkErator, a division of Emerson, and the world’s leading manufacturer of food waste disposers.

According to the EPA, landfills are a major source of methane, a greenhouse gas at least 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Because food scraps are a significant component of waste that municipalities send to landfills, diverting it for recycling into resources is becoming a major goal of cities worldwide. Enter food waste disposers, which pulverize food scraps and send the resulting slurry to the various wastewater treatment systems evaluated in the LCA.

Source: http://world-wire.com/2011/08/12/new-study-will-make-people-think-twice-about-how-they-discard-food-waste/