Me at Vallie's age. Living in bliss. |
We live in a country of plenty. I was blessed to have been
born into a family that never worried about hunger or where our next meal was
coming from. As a kid, I’m sure I crossed paths with kids who didn’t know if
there was going to be supper for them that night, but I was oblivious to their
problems. I wish all children could live in the bliss of a childhood I had, but
unfortunately, that is not the case.
In the US, 1 in 5
children are food
insecure, meaning that they lack access to enough food to maintain a
healthy lifestyle. I look at my daughter and it breaks my heart to think about
the parents in my neighborhood who don’t have the means to provide enough food
for their children.
Globally, the numbers are even grimmer. Hunger is the #1
risk of health in the world. More people die from hunger than AIDS, malaria,
and tuberculosis, combined. Every 7 seconds, somewhere in the world, a child
dies from malnutrition. I could go on and on about hunger, but that is not the
topic of this post.
By the year 2050,
it is estimated that the global population will rise to somewhere between 9 and 10 billion people. As people live
longer and more enriched lives, more people will enter the middle class and
will demand more food. It is estimated that the world will need to produce 100% more food than we do today to feed
those people. We are already using most of the land and resources that we have
for food production, so most of that increase in food production (about 70%) will have to come from
finding ways to produce food more efficiently.
Food may become a scarcity.
It is estimated that one
third of the food produced today in
the world is wasted. That is about
1.3 billion tons of edible food wasted or lost every year.
Last summer I attended a conference and a whole session was
devoted to food waste. Three speakers from the meat industry presented some
really eye-opening facts about food waste and what can be done about it. They
included Dr. Brian Smith from Hawkins, Inc., Dr. Brad Morgan from Pfizer Animal
Heath (now Zoetis), and Dr. Benjy
Mikel from Mississippi State University. I wanted to share some of their
information in a post.
In developing countries, edible food is lost mostly during
the early and middle stages of food production, largely due to corruption and
lack of infrastructure. The challenges in those countries are in getting the
food to hungry people in a wholesome manner. Consumers in the developing world
waste very little of the food that reaches them.
In developed countries (USA, western Europe), food is largely
wasted at the consumption stage. Tons and tons of food in these countries is
discarded even if it is still wholesome and edible.
My grandmother (in pink) with some of her brothers and sister. Part of the Greatest Generation, they did not waste food. |
In
the USA, food waste has increased 50% since 1974. That doesn’t surprise me when
I think about my parents’ and grandparents’ attitudes about food waste compared
to those of my generation. My grandmother was the youngest of 14 children and
was born in the first year of the Great Depression. Do you think she wasted
food? No way.
A few more facts about American food waste:
·
People in the USA waste approximately 1,400
kcal/person/day
·
3,000 lbs of food is wasted every second in
America, enough to feed 650 Americans
·
50% of leafy vegetables are wasted
·
33% of bread is wasted
·
12% of meat is wasted
·
22% of vegetables are wasted
The US could save roughly 2% of its total energy consumption in one year if we stopped
wasting food. That’s roughly equivalent to 300
million barrels of oil.
In
developed countries, we waste food because
we can afford to. In my grandparent’s time, they didn’t throw out food
because it wasn’t as cheap and accessible as it is today. In the US, only about
6.9% of our disposable income goes toward food. In China, they spend 32.9% of
their disposable incomes on food, in Brazil, 24.7%. Some countries are spending
over 40% of their disposable income on food.
If we were spending 6 or 7 times as much on our food, we
would probably be much less likely to waste it, but increasing the cost of food
in this country is not the answer. When you look at individual food stuffs, you
see that cheap foods, such as cereals, have much higher total waste and much
more waste at the consumer level than more expensive foods like oilseeds and
meat. You wouldn’t just forget about those $30 steaks you bought and let them
go bad in the fridge, but a $3 box of cereal is more easily forgotten. Of
course, shelf life plays a big role in food waste, too. Dairy products are
overwhelmingly wasted at the consumer level. I can’t count the times I’ve
poured 1/3 to ½ of my gallon of milk down the drain because it spoiled before
we drank it.
Not only do we lose resources that were used to produce food
that was eventually wasted, wasted food creates another problem in that all once-food,
now garbage must be transported and disposed of somewhere. Food waste in
landfills contributes to methane production and greenhouse gas emissions. According
to a story
by NPR, food accounts for 20% of the waste created in New York City. It
costs $100 million per year to haul it away.
What can be done?
Dr. Mikel told us that the world produces enough food to
feed everyone, even the 9 or 10 billion people that will be here in 2050. We
can work through programs like Heifer
International and USAID to help people
in the developing countries to have access to enough wholesome food.
AND, there are lots of ways to change our habits in this
country and be conscious about how much food we are wasting.
·
Controlling portions and minimizing food waste
at home is the first step.
·
Make a
shopping list based on what you
ate since you went to the store last.
·
Know how much you can eat at restaurants and
don’t be afraid to share a meal. In
the US, we tend to control our intake and overeating by leaving food on the
plate.
·
Make it a habit for small kids to share a meal,
either with you or each other. (This has been a new challenge for Vallie. She
is very opinionated about her meals.)
·
Understand use-by
and expiration dates. Most of the time these dates are just about food
quality and not food safety, meaning that the food may lose a little taste, but
it is still safe to eat. (For meat and dairy items, I would still stick close
to the freeze-by dates.)
·
Do some research on proper
handling and storage times for perishable foods. The internet is full of
good advice.
What is being done on
a corporate level?
ARAMARK – a company that supplies meals to students in
dining halls has eliminated trays from its dining halls on several campuses.
Remember that students pay to eat at dining halls by the meal, not by the food
item, so there is not a financial incentive to limit the food they pick up.
When they were not provided trays, students picked up less food. They were
probably still free to go back for seconds. Sounds like a small change, but at
the University of Alabama, they saved 6,000
pounds of solid waste per week by eliminating trays. ARAMARK has
implemented the program at 300 universities and saved over 15 million pounds of
food waste. They also saved water and energy by not washing all those trays.
TESCO
– a grocery store chain in the UK has taken several steps to help reduce food
waste. They changed the buy-one-get-one-free coupons to a buy-one-get-one-free next time coupon. Same savings for the
consumer, less likelihood of food being wasted. They have also implemented a
‘fresh indicator’ label on some of its food products to help consumers know
when the food is ok to consume. This label is based on time, temperature, when
the food was opened, and several factors and lets the consumer know whether the
food is fresh or not based on a traffic light label of green, yellow, or red.
Some countries are
taking an active role in helping to reduce food waste.
·
The United Kingdom has website to help consumers
control food waste called lovefoodhatewaste.com
as part of their Waste & Resources Action
Program (WRAP)
·
South Korea is the world leader in lowering food
waste. They accomplished this by taxing people for food waste. Consumers are
required to pay a fee for food waste. This measure has reduced food waste by
20% and saved $4.3 billion in US dollars.
When we think about food waste on a global scale and we see
figures like 1.3 billion pounds of food wasted, it seems overwhelming.
When I open my fridge and see forgotten leftovers, a wilted
bag of salad, and expired milk, I feel like a failure.
I am trying to approach food waste like I do any bad habit.
Little by little, I try to get better.
Some days, I will falter, but tomorrow, I will try to be better. Just
being conscious of the issue will be a big help.
What are some other steps we could take to waste less food?
I have a few more great links and figures:
My friend, Dr. Jude Capper, of Bovidiva
wrote a great post just yesterday on this same topic. Her insight is great.
The Food Network did a great special on Food Waste called The
Big Waste. It is definitely worth watching!
I thought several of the figures from Dr. Mikel’s talk about
where food is wasted were very informative, so I’ve included them below:
Give a couple of chickens to all the homes in suburbia and they can eat the scraps, provide eggs, and fertilize the soil.
ReplyDeleteMind-sobering information. Thanks for sharing. My brain will be pondering this all day.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great comments!
ReplyDeleteI think awareness will be our first step towards wasting less food.
Great post! This is a real sticking point for me. The amount of waste in our food system is deplorable. Reduce the waste > reduce the supply needed > reduce the resources required. I know it's not that simple, but perhaps it's just my Dutch ancestry, but I can never stand to see food wasted. I used to organize large events for customers, before that I waitressed and worked in a banquet hall. The waste made me so upset.
ReplyDeleteOn an unrelated note - I was reading through a few other posts on your blog. How do you manage to stay patient and not lose it on the ranting from some readers? I just wrote a huge comment to "Si" on the Gestation Stall post, but unfortunately it didn't post. I think it's incredibly ignorant of these individuals. Hats off to you for putting up with it.
Thanks for the comment. I don't think I could stand to work in food service. People complain when the portion sizes are not big enough, then they leave 1/2 their food on their plates.
DeleteAs far as the nasty commenters go, I try to remember that they are not part of my target audience. People like Si have already made up their minds about animal ag and me arguing with them is not going to make any difference.
I just try to remain positive and worry about the people who are really here to learn more about their food and where it comes from. That's who I write the blog for, not Si.
Thanks again for the support,
Janeal
Janeal, this has been on my mind for awhile to blog about and you have given me the science, numbers, platform and inspiration. I actually want to talk to to you about this because I think MORE should be blogging this topic! THANK YOU
ReplyDeleteJaneal, this blog caught my attention because I was fortunate enough to go to an Oxford Hunger Banquet last week. They hosted it at my college which is really great, young people need to be aware. This issue is only going to grow it isn't something that is suddenly going to disappear. Many of the facts you stated were also said at the banquet. My entire Animal Science class was challenged not to eat the entire day. Slips of paper were given at the banquet, determining our fate. I had to sit on the floor I was given plain rice with no silverwear, and dirty water. That was my only meal that day while others sat in fancy chairs and had a steak dinner in front of almost 100 kids on the floor. It was an amazing experience that real opened my eyes to what it is like for some people. They don't get a choice it is simply what they are born into. Hopefully more people are aware of the food shortage and do not waste so much. Simple things like this blog, or that banquet are making a difference. Thanks for making people aware.
ReplyDeleteWhat an eye-opening experience! Where do you go to school?
DeleteVery interesting post, Janeal.
ReplyDeleteI try hard not to waste food and frequently come up shorter than I would like. My table scraps and food gone bad are rarely wasted. I have 16 hens, several barn cats and 2 dogs that seem to fight over who gets to clean up the goodies from my "chicken bucket." It amazes me how fast they can slick up the scraps.
A little over a year ago Food Network had a show on that dealt with this issue. If I remember right, Chefs were in a contest to cook a gourmet meal using food that was tossed out my different stores, bakeries and food shops. It was amazing the good food that was being tossed because of blemishes or expiration dates.
Robyn
http://theranchwifechronicles.com/
Mum's blog really nice article you will love this blog must read you can get the sympathy of a moms.
ReplyDelete