In the wake of Thanksgiving, Digital Journal describes a new twist on the problem of food waste. First, the context of food waste in the US:
Three researchers from the Laboratory of Biological Modeling, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America, recently published a study that confirms the unrestrained waste of food in the United States.
Their findings are shocking: “We found that US per capita food waste has progressively increased by ~50% since 1974 reaching more than 1400 kcal per person per day or 150 trillion kcal per year. Food waste now accounts for more than one quarter of the total freshwater consumption and ~300 million barrels of oil per year.”
The article highlights a recent sociological insight into the fate of this wasted food, from research by Cornell sociologists Jeffery Sobal and Thomas A. Lyson, and Mary Griffin of the Arnot Ogden Medical Center:
Their study quantified food waste in one U.S. county in 1998–1999. They identified three options for waste food –donation, compost or landfill. The vast majority of food waste in the United Sates goes straight to landfill. According to their study, “Less than one-third (28%) of total food waste was recovered via composting (25%) and food donations (3%), and over 7,000 tons (72%) were landfilled. More than 8.8 billion kilocalories of food were wasted, enough to feed county residents for 1.5 months.”
While many regions worry about malnutrition and famine residents of most parts of the the United States need to worry about the deleterious environmental impacts their gargantuan waste of food products is having.
Comments 3
Philip Cohen — November 30, 2009
Yikes. Consider this in context of girls under 5 thinking they're too fat, weight-loss competition contestants starving and dehydrating themselves near death, and the televising of competitive eating. Some picture! (I wrote about it, too, on FamilyInequality.com: http://wp.me/pGTqb-4g)
Philip Cohen — November 30, 2009
Yikes. Consider this in context of girls under 5 thinking they’re too fat, weight-loss competition contestants starving and dehydrating themselves near death, and the televising of competitive eating. Some picture! I wrote about it, too, on FamilyInequality.com: http://wp.me/pGTqb-4g [fixing link? sorry.]
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist ! — November 30, 2009
Restaurants need to stop serving such large portions of food. I've always asked the waiter/waitress to please make sure my portion is very small and they'd never listen.