Stop Wasting Food
By Dr Arvind Kumar
An effective way of ensuring food security is to minimize food wastage. Avoiding food wastage is also one of the easiest ways to aid the environment. According to one estimate, about 40% of the food produced in the United States isn’t consumed and Americans waste 50% more food today than they did in 1974. Squandering so much of what is grown doesn’t just leads to wastage of food; it also culminates in wastage of the fossil fuel that went into growing, processing, transporting and refrigerating it. According to report published in Los Angeles Times, a recent study estimated conservatively that 2% of all U.S. energy consumption went to producing food that was never eaten.
Jonathan Bloom laments that waste of resources continues after food is thrown away food because there is the energy required to haul the discarded food to the landfill. And once there, food decomposes and creates methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent a heat trapper than carbon dioxide. Landfills are the second-largest human-related source of methane emissions, and rotting food causes the majority of methane there. It’s climate change coming directly from the kitchen.
Not only will cutting food waste help the planet, but it also will make one a slightly more ethical person. Food waste crosses racial, class and gender lines. It’s a systemic problem rooted in a culture of abundance and busy lifestyle. But it’s also one we can change.
