Every day American’s are reaching into their wallets and purses and throwing their hard earned cash right into the trash. Don’t believe it? Do this, on trash day take a walk down the block and peek inside any of your neighbors trash cans. You are guaranteed to find anywhere from a few dollars to hundreds of dollars worth of food in any of the trash cans. Oh, you thought this was about dollars and cents. Actually it is. Americans are throwing out perfectly edible food – about 1 pound of it – for a family of 4 each and every day. It works out to almost 500 pounds of food yearly. Worst of all, this is food that often times has not expired or even been opened.
You are probably thinking how can this be? With 66% of adult American’s being overweight or obese, why would there be any food in the trash cans at all. I too was surprised by this. Here’s the deal, American’s have created a consumer driven throw-it-away culture that does not think to much about how food is produced. Food for us is relatively cheap and in great supply (assuming you want to count fast food as, well, food). Anyhow, the harsh stark reality is that we just don’t care, but we should.
Unfortunately the problem is systemic. It begins with growers and works its way up the food supply chain. Growers, for example, will take risks on the commodities market if they think it will make the big bucks. Sometimes it pays off, but a missed opportunity can result with edible food literally being tilled under because of market timing. More waste is created by restaurants and markets who deliver food to consumers. Food is thrown out regularly for a variety of economic reasons; surprisingly it’s often cheaper to throw out perfectly good food then to sell or serve it. Bottom line is the bottom line, right! I’m not convinced especially with the staggering numbers of people in Food Crisis in the US alone.
Here’s a few numbers for you to chew on. The New York Times reported that 27 percent of all edible food, meaning available for consumption, ends up in land fill. According to the study almost 100 billion pounds of the 356 billion pounds of edible food in the United States was never eaten. 100 billion pounds is absolutely an astounding number that I have a hard time even getting my head around; you know, just trying to imagine that much food just thrown away.
So what is to be done about it? Seriously, what are your attitudes towards food? Do you throw out food because you think anything over a few hours old is rotten? Or, do you eat left overs until they are growing hair on them and smell like a trash bin?
Tags: environment, food crisis, food waste
