Chris Vogliano, MS, RDN defines food waste as food that is lost, discarded, or uneaten. Food waste is mostly in developed countries and food loss is mostly in developing countries. Food waste for developing countries occurs early in the food supply chain. Food waste can occur due to harvesting, transportation, storage issues, and spoilage. Wasted food in developed countries happens later mostly due to restaurants, food service operations, and consumers. Food waste can occur during production, harvest, and transportation (pests, insects, diseases, weather). Food waste can occur with retailers and food services (overstocking, past best buy, consumer expectation). Consumers also contribute to food waste (uneaten leftovers, overbuying, and confusion over the best buy dates). He even states that according to the USDA, supermarkets alone lose up to $15 billion annually in unsold fruits and vegetables. America wastes an estimated 40% of all food that we produce.
Alice Henneman, MS, RDN continues the discussion with different strategies to helping reduce food waste. One important strategy is decoding the food labels. Over 90% of consumers are throwing out food too early, which leads to massive food waste. Dieticians have the opportunity to educate consumers on the differences between sell by, use by, and best by on food labels that I’m sure we’ve all seen before while grocery shopping. She goes on to list other strategies which include “offer vs. serve” in schools, avoid overbuying fresh produce, switching to smaller plates, getting creative with scraps, etc. There are a variety of ways that everyone can participate in to help reduce the food waste that is occurring.
This webinar was interesting and shocking at the same time. It’s concerning for a number of reasons. One reason being that we have millions of people who live in America that do not know where their next meal is coming from. To have such a massive food waste issue, we still have so many people who deal with food insecurity. Food waste also creates the greenhouse gas methane when introduced to landfills (which should be a last resort if you can help it). Chris mentions that methane is 25 times more dangerous than carbon dioxide. Some additional information to consider would be the food recovery hierarchy from the EPA. Donate extra food to food banks or shelters, composting, using scraps for animal feed and a few other strategies are listed as well. There are even apps that can be downloaded to help reduce food waste: Is My Food Safe?, Love Food Hate Waste, and Green Egg Shopper were the few named during this webinar.
It baffles me how 40% of all food is wasted in America. Thankfully, there are some positive efforts. I volunteered at a food bank once, but it was only then that I was educated on how long some foods can last past the expiration date. Also, UGA actually removed the trays from the dining halls in efforts to reduce food waste, which I thought was a great course of action.
If only there was some way to bridge the gap between the excess food and those who need food… America is such a capitalistic society that would rather discard unsold products than give it away to those in need.
How do you feel about artificial preservatives? I feel like there is no simple answer, as the addition of these chemicals also spark disputes; food does not last long naturally on its own.
I personally don’t like or dislike artificial preservatives. I think without them, there’s a chance the food waste issue could be worse. I agree there is no simple answer because without preservatives, shelf life for a lot of items would be shorter. I think if you can limit them that’s awesome, but for some foods it can be hard to avoid. For America to be one of the richest countries, we sure do neglect those who live here when it comes to basic necessities like food. I’m sure there are ways to help eliminate the issue, it’s just getting the buy in and participation that we need from businesses, communities, corporations, restaurant industries, etc.
Thanks for such a great overview, Kristen. It is definitely interesting to hear about this issue. Personally, I try to minimize the amount of food I waste due to the reasons you described (overbuying, not using produce quickly enough, etc) but I know that this happens on an even larger scale in the food service industry. One thought I had while reading your post was about a program that could be developed to go around to restaurants at the end of each day and collect all of the unused (but still safe for consumption) food that they would be throwing away that night. The food could then be packaged and distributed to local centers that provide services for people that need them. To take it further, it would be great if there were an incentive system, besides knowing they are helping people in need, where the restaurants could write off the food as donations; something similar to a Goodwill donation. It could be based on the amount of food they donate and could be tallied up at the end of the year and become part of the calculation for their tax payment. I know it would take a lot of coordination and buy-in, but I think such a program may be worthwhile to solve multiple problems!
I was surprised myself as I was watching this webinar! It even made me consider how much food I probably waste whenever I buy certain foods. I like the idea of an incentive system, especially for the restaurants. I’ve wondered what do some restaurants do, when they have leftover food at the end of the night that is already cooked? With so many people experiencing food insecurity, I think it would be awesome for food industries to take that food and distribute it in their neighborhood or shelters, etc. This is a definitely a community effort that literally everyone can participate in. I think with the right coordination and buy in like you mentioned could really help being to eliminate this issue.
Kristen, this was a very interesting discussion. I was shocked to see the estimated percentage of food that is wmasted in the United States every year. It’s hard to imagine that almost half of the food produced in the United States is wasted. It was interesting to see where all of the waste comes from as well. I realized that a majority of it would come from reassurance waste or thrown out food from super markets. But what i didn’t realize is the amount of food that is thrown out by consumers who do not understand the differences between sell by, use by, and Best Buy dates. So much food that could still be used is being thrown out by consumers. In a world where so many people are starving or concerned about where their next meal will come from, its hard to believe that so much food would go to waste so easily. Hopefully over time, we will be able to make changes to successfully lower the amount of food that is wasted in the United States each year.