Americans Waste 40% of Their Food

by Greg Plotkin · 2009-12-03 06:00:00 UTC
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In the United States, it seems that food is everywhere we look.

Driving down the highway, we see signs for a plethora of fast food restaurants, and food companies spend millions of dollars each year coming up with new value-added food products to attract consumer dollars.

This has not only resulted in an increasingly overweight population, but a citizenry that has begun to waste food at levels never seen before -- even in the middle of a recession and with hunger rising.

A new study has found that Americans waste 1,400 calories per person per day, or nearly 40% of the county's entire food supply.  But that's not even the most disturbing statistic.

In order to produce the 1,400 calories that Americans toss into the trash everyday, we use one-fourth of the country's supply of fresh water.  In addition, three hundred million barrels of oil are used each year to produce food that eventually just gets thrown away.

What the heck is wrong with us America?  This is completely and utterly unacceptable.

I would assume that a lot of this food waste comes from more institutional culprits -- restaurants, hotels, corporate offices -- but that doesn't mean that we're not responsible as individuals or that we shouldn't all strive to reduce the waste in our lives.

There are many easy ways to do this, including donating excess food, composting and most importantly (this really seems like common sense, but I guess it's not) only buying what you or your family can eat.

Food waste is actually the first thing I ever wrote about for Poverty in America, and what I said (well, it's really what the USDA said) then is even more important now: recovering just a fraction of the food we waste in this country would feed millions of hungry people.

So what are we waiting for?

(Photo of a dumpster of wasted food from sporkist on Flickr)

Greg Plotkin currently works for Flying Pigs Farm in Shushan, NY. He is dedicated to eliminating inequalities in who has access to healthy food and alleviating hunger.
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