Food Waste

You may be wasting more food than you think. Based on the USDA’s Economic Research Service, Americans waste 30-40 percent of their food supply from farm to fork every year. There are two kinds of wasted food: food loss and food waste. Food loss encompasses all of the ways food can be lost from the producer to the transporter to the consumer. Food waste includes only food lost at the consumer level. In low-income countries, most food is lost due to less access to farming technology, lack of refrigeration and poor infrastructure. The U.S. has better technology and transportation methods, however, it is still are one of the countries with the largest amount of food waste in the world. Particularly, the majority of food wasted in the U.S. is due to consumers and retail. This waste is produced by restaurants, households and stores throwing out food that has not been eaten, discarding imperfect-looking fruits and vegetables, putting up overstocked product displays and making confusing labels.

Food waste accounts for about 11% of greenhouse gases.

On an environmental level, an extreme amount of energy and resources that went into the growing, transporting and disposing of food is lost. The wasted food that goes into landfills produces the greenhouse gas, methane, which is 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Food waste accounts for about 11% of greenhouse gases. In addition to negative environmental impacts, a solution is lost for food insecurity when food is wasted. Around 11% of families in the U.S. are food insecure. In fact, food waste is one of the root causes of hunger worldwide. Cutting down on food waste will allow the most vulnerable communities to become more food insecure and to lessen the impacts of climate change.

Here are ways you can cut down on food waste:

1. Be creative in using whatever’s left in your fridge to cook meals
2. Preserve, can or freeze fruits and vegetables
3. Don’t eat at all-you-can-eat buffets (I know they’re so fun though)
4. Sign up for organizations that sell “imperfect” fruits and vegetables 
5. Eat all of your food on the plate at restaurants
6. Make a shopping list so you don’t overbuy 
7. Compost scraps
8. Understand the dates on food 

Tessa is a senior Biology major from Redmond, WA. She is interested in how climate change and environmental issues affect minority and low-income communities.