What is Food Waste?

Food waste is a very real and large issue here in the United States and globally and an issue I am VERY passionate about. Food waste is exactly what it sounds like… food that has been, well you know, wasted. Most people don’t realize just how much food is wasted on day to day basis.

In fact, statistics show that worldwide, 1 in every 3 food calories produced are wasted which equates to enough calories to feed 3 billion people (that’s 10 times the population of the US, more than twice that of china and more than 3 times the total number of malnourished globally)1. As you can see right there those stats are pretty high. In the US, 30–40% of our food supply is wasted US which adds of to 133 billion pounds of food and $161 billion worth of food(yikes…that’s a lot of money)2.
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Food waste occurs in every aspect of the food supply chain: on the farms, in the grocery stores, resturants, at home, schools, universities, cafeterias, etc. and ultimately ends up in the landfill (which causes all sorts of other problems with greenhouse gases). Not only does that food go to the landfill but so do the resources that it took to grow that food and get it to the hands of the consumer (land, fuel, water, labor, transportation, etc.).

You can read more about how to reduce your food waste here.