Los Angeles Takes Food From the Full to Give to the Hungry

In an effort to reduce food waste and alleviate hunger, the Los Angeles City Council approved a much-needed policy last night to push city departments  to give leftover food from city events to local food pantries.

Councilman Jose Huizar, who introduced the legislation last year with help from city hunger groups, said in a press conference yesterday that he hopes the new policy will inspire more businesses and organizations to adopt similar programs and, just as recycling has become a habit, more people will start regularly donating uneaten and unopened food.

Most Americans — even those who are sustainable foodies — definitely lack this habit now. The sustainable food philosophy seems to strangely end with the culmination of each meal: Each American wastes about one pound of food every day, resulting in a country-wide total of about 30 million tons each year, according to the New York Times. Only two percent of this waste is recycled. In fact, about half of our food supply goes uneaten, concluded one 2004 study. A pretty depressing statistic considering that there are currently more than one billion hungry people in the world.

Ditching food is actually an incredibly environmentally degrading practice. Change.org blogger David Orr recently wrote that trashed food is a waste of "the resources that went into producing, shipping, and storing that food," including tons of water and oil. He goes on to note that "edible food waste left to rot in the landfill emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change." Finally, he writes,"If we can do a better job of minimizing waste and maximizing yield, we can feed more people with the same amount of land."

Indeed, it would seem that global hunger is not a food production problem. Rather, it's a distribution issue. In 2008, 49.1 million Americans lived in food insecure households, despite the fact that the country literally throws away millions of tons of perfectly edible chow each year. And the situation seems to have gotten worse lately: The non-profit Feeding America surveyed its members and found 74 percent of pantries, 65 percent of kitchens, and 54 percent of shelters reported an increase in visitors since 2006. Many cities and towns have reported supply shortages at food banks, thanks to continued unemployment and tighter household budgets.

Huizar knows that the new model works because it's already been tested. Thousands of L.A. residents receive surplus food leftover from more than 400 events at the L.A. Convention Center each year. Not only does it work, it's a piece of cake to implement: The only thing city, state, and federal policymakers have to do is round up interested non-profits and organizations to package and deliver leftover food that would otherwise be discarded from convention center dinners, board meetings, restaurants, and other city facilities. It's a simple strategy where everyone wins — including the planet.

Photo credit: Sporkist via Flickr