How Much Food Do We Waste?

No matter how hard I tried to conserve and not waste food, I constantly find myself throwing away food that has spoiled or fruit that has wrotted. My small waste stream makes up up part of a larger national one. As a teen I used to work in the dining room of a large hotel chain and that is where I first noticed food waste. Many dishes that came to be put through the industrial washer had renmants of food left over. We are not soing much better today as can be gleaned from the following statistics:

40 percent of food in the United States today goes uneaten. That is more than 20 pounds of food per person every month. Not only does this mean that Americans are throwing out the equivalent of $165 billion each year, but also 25 percent of all freshwater and huge amounts of unnecessary chemicals, energy, and land. Moreover, almost all of that uneaten food ends up rotting in landfills where it accounts for almost 25 percent of U.S. methane emissions.

Nutrition is also lost in the mix -- food saved by reducing losses by just 15 percent could feed more than 25 million Americans every year at a time when one in six Americans lack a secure supply of food to their tables. Given all the resources demanded for food production, it is critical to make sure that the least amount possible is needlessly squandered on its journey to our plates.

Food is simply too good to waste. Even the most sustainably farmed food does us no good if the food is never eaten. Getting food to our tables eats up 10 percent of the total U.S. energy budget, uses 50 percent of U.S. land, and swallows 80 percent of freshwater consumed in the United States.

 

Consumption vs. loss by categories (US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand)

 

                                                Consumed       Loss

Fruits & Vegetables                 48%                 52%

Seafood                                   50                    50

Grain Products                        62                    38

Meat                                        78                    22

Milk                                          80                    20

 

 

Source – NRDC National Resources Defense Council