On Food Waste

"At the moment, we are trashing our land to grow food that no one eats." - Tristram Stuart, "The Global Food Waste Scandal" (TED)

Food waste has always been one of my biggest pet peeves. I'm apalled when I see people throw away barely-touched plates of food at social events or walk past garbage bins full of perfectly good grocery items approaching their sell-by date. These images strike me as symbols of injustice and ingratitude. When I bring up my distaste for waste in a world full of hunger, people get defensive and say things like, "Well, I can't really send it to Africa, can I?" No, maybe not, but come on! You can't let yourself off the hook that easily when your actions are a living reminder that our food system is broken in so many important ways. Wake up, people, you are not powerless.

Someone recently sent me this TED talk dealing with the issue:
http://www.ted.com/talks/tristram_stuart_the_global_food_waste_scandal.html

In America we are familiar with food waste. We see it all the time. But I don't think any of us really think about the full measure of what is being wasted in our food systems. Because it's not just about kids throwing away half of their lunch in school cafeterias. It's not just about the cucumbers that go bad in your fridge. The way our systems are structured create waste on a massive scale at every level. (Tristam Stuart starts talking about this at about 6:23 in the TED talk linked here. Here's the run-down with a bit of commentary from me.)

Somewhere around 1/9 of what is grown in the world is wasted while still in the field, mostly in the developing world through lack of infrastructure and preservation technologies. (Opportunity for improvement? Definitely.) Then one third of that agricultural output (and we're talking human-consumption grade crops, here) is fed to livestock for meat and dairy production. Think of that - one third! And the food yields from those animals is only one third of the input... so we've just lost - wasted - another 2/9 of our food supply. (I'll spare you the brunt of my opinions on this matter here. Suffice it to say... that irks me quite a bit. If you're interested, see my previous post about "Why I'm a Vegetarian.") Then we get to what we traditionally think of as waste - I'll call that "trash can waste." That by itself accounts for another 2/9 of the world's food supply. But the vast majority of that is not about what gets tossed from your household fridge or pantry. It's day-old, but perfectly edible bakery goods or vegetables that just aren't pretty enough for our supermarkets.  All told, we are wasting more than half of the world's food supply while millions of people starve. Why is no one talking about this?

Starting at about 11:20, Tristram Stuart talks about some solutions. Let's make some noise about it. Put pressure on the organizations with control over it. Learn how to keep your own food fresh longer. Figure out what to do with the inevitable food waste (aka, handle livestock production more sensibly!).

And I'm sure there are many more things we can do about this. I'm gonna do some more thinking about it. Would you do so with me? If you have ideas, please comment! Because when it comes down to it, the coexistance of food waste and starvation in the same world is a glaring injustice. And as someone striving to be "my brother's keeper" (see previous posts), I want to know what I can do about it.