More than $31 billion worth of food is wasted every year in Canada and when energy, water and other resource costs are factored in the true cost could be up to as much as $107 Billion each year according to a report published by Value Chain Management International, a consulting firm, which suggests that millions of kilograms of food is wasted every year in Canadian homes, restarants, & grocery stores. This finding shows a 15 % increase from their findings four years ago when the cost was $27 Billion,in 2010. They also go on to say that this is 2% of Canada s GDP and larger than the total economic output of the poorest 29 countries on the planet.
The report goes on to say that the total doesn 't include what 's being wasted at federal institutions
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Among them are: Individuals waste some $14.6 billion worth of food every year, about 47 per cent of the total. This mainly consists of food items that Canadians buy with the intention of using in their homes, but never do, so it ends up eventually in a landfill or composted. Food manufacturing and processing is responsible for as much as one-fifth of the food wasted across the country. Ten per cent of food waste happens on a farm, before even entering the broader system. Retailers waste another 10 per cent. Restaurants and hotels waste a further nine per cent. The rest is wasted at processing facilities such as food terminals, or during transportation. The report notes that food waste in the travel sector is especially egregious — up to five kilograms per person, per day, according to some estimates. Even using more conservative estimates, the paper says one could feed 200,000 inhabitants of poorer countries for a year with nothing more than the food that gets wasted on European airlines every year. On international flights, regulations require any excess food be thrown out after a flight — regardless of whether it was used. And cruise liners are the worst culprit, generating the highest per capita food waste. Waste like that costs everyone, not just the person who bought the food and the person who made it. The report estimates that what it calls "avoidable" …show more content…
Canadians waste $31 billion of food every year, 47% wasted in the home*. The primary contributor to consumer food waste is high expectations—demand for high-quality, aesthetically-pleasing food is a key factor behind the volume of food waste occurring among consumers.* In North America, over 30 percent of fruits and vegetables are rejected by supermarkets because they aren 't attractive enough for consumers. (*According to the Cut Waste, Grow Profit 2014 report.)
Nutrition and food security are among the top 4 social indicators of health in Canada, with limited access to nutritious, affordable food linked to poor health. (*According to the Canadian Medical Association 's What Makes Us Sick? 2013 report.) Food insecurity in Canada*: 1 in 8 Canadian families struggle to put food on the table. 32% of the people requiring food assistance are children.** 25% of food bank users are immigrants.** 16% of people in need of food assistance have income from recent or current employment.* 79,000 people each month access a food bank for the first time.* Almost 40% of food bank clients have a diploma, degree or
British Columbia (BC) is a wealthy province that provides a variety of publicly funded services to its residents, however, from 2011 to 2012 almost 1.1 million British Columbians and 4.9 percent of Canadian children were affected by food insecurity (Rideout & Kotasky, 2014, Statistics Canada, 2015). Food insecurity goes beyond not having enough to eat but also has an impact on health equity and social justice. “Children experiencing food insecurity have poorer school performance, and having not learned healthy eating habits in childhood; they face additional challenges of healthy living as adults” (Rideout & Kotasky, 2014).
Through the manufacturing and industrialization of foods many foods are made into frozen meals which are a lot easier to prepare. Pre-packaged frozen food that interviewee would eat she thought was semi healthy because it included a vegetable and meat or pasta. The price of the frozen food is something that she mentioned as well, these are a lot cheaper than buying fresh fruits and vegetables. The main ingredients that she found she used seemed to be a lot less healthy than what her mother would make her family for dinner. A lot of the main ingredients in meals prepared by her are pre-cooked or frozen foods such as vegetables and fruits which seem to lose their nutritional value (Scrinis, 2008). With living in a farming community, she tries to eat vegetables and fruits that are grown locally which helps to add some nutritional content to her food. One thing that the interviewee talked about during the interview was about the amount of packaging that is used today to help protect food to last longer on grocery store shelves. With grocery stores being so accessible and convenient it pushes a lot of people away from unpackaged and local foods. Interviewee believes that with grocery stores being so convenient and needing to provide food for multiple people the quality has decreased drastically. With having so much low quality food that is easily accessible it is pushing people’s health down which can be visibly seen according to the
According to Roni Neff, Marie Spiker, and Patricia Truant, up to 40% of all food produced in America is thrown away (Neff, Spiker, & Truant, 2015, p.2). This wasted food is worth hundreds of billions of dollars that is lost each year in the United States alone, and creates many threats to our country. Food waste is an important and widespread issue in the United States because most of the food thrown away is perfectly fine, it could be used to feed the hungry, and the waste hurts the environment.
In 1986, a waste treaty between Canada and the U.S. was signed by American lawmakers concerning the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste. Under the terms of this treaty, the EPA is to receive notification of these shipments, and then would have 30 days to consent or object to the shipment. Since 1986 Canada has shipped its garbage to Michigan to be dumped into landfills and the provisions of this treaty have never been enforced. But now is the time for them to be enforced and stop the importing of Canada's garbage.
Poverty is a serious issue in Canada needs to be addressed promptly. Poverty is not simply about the lack of money an individual has; it is much more than that. The World Bank Organization defines poverty by stating that, “Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time”. In Canada, 14.9 percent of Canada’s population has low income as Statistics Canada reports, which is roughly about two million of Canadians in poverty or on the verge of poverty. In addition, according to an UNICEF survey, 13.3 percent of Canadian children live in poverty. If the government had started to provide efficient support to help decrease the rates of poverty, this would not have been such a significant issue in Canada. Even though the issue of poverty has always been affecting countries regardless of the efforts being made to fight against it, the government of Canada still needs to take charge and try to bring the percentage of poverty down to ensure that Canada is a suitable place to live. Therefore, due to the lack of support and social assistance from the government, poverty has drastically increased in Canada.
In order to bring about change in this misuse of food, Americans need to be conscious of the problem and their practices, the environmental effects, and ways they can reduce waste. In the first place, Americans need to be conscious of the problem and their practices. In her article, Eliana Dockterman states that the National Resources Defense Council has estimated that 40% of the food
The crisis has driven 110 million people into poverty and added 44 million more to the already undernourished. To help solve this problem the committee for food security exists so all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient and nutritious food. Canada is a vast land that has plentiful natural resources, great quality of life, a stable economy and a progressive political environment. Canada commits to helping other nations, for example, with our world food plan. The Global Food Crisis effects Canada in several ways.
“Man, I am stuffed! I cannot possibly finish all of this,” a line all too common in America and spoken by millions each day. You are eating dinner and then about halfway through, you realize that your stomach is just about full and cannot take in any more food. The food left over is destine to go in the trash, adding to the annual billions of dollars in food being wasted just in America. Here in the United States, it seems like our food stock is unlimited, but in many countries around the world, a single crumb of food is a pure luxury and is praised. When you think about it, our discarding of perfectly good food is a serious problem and needs to be solved soon. Solving this situation all starts with you. A way to reduce waste is only taking
Kirkpatrick and Tarasuk(2009)explain that 1 in 10 people in household in Canada experienced food insecurity in 2004. Food insecurity appears to be primarily caused by inadequate incomes(p. 135). In this sense food insecurity can be seen as a result of food injustice in which economic, social and political system result in people experiencing food insecurity.
Food waste is classified in many ways, such as through a liquid form like water, garden waste, plate waste which is the food that is left behind after eating a meal, and lastly Luxus waste which is a term for overconsumption as a form of food waste that leads to health problems. But according to the article about food waste written by George Willson “food loss refers to the decrease in edible mass that occurs at production, postharvest, and processing stages in the food supply chain, whereas food waste occurs at the end of the food chain in retail and final consumption” (Willson). Therefore, food waste has multiple sources on where it comes from. And though we as the consumer, we will have the power to stop this ongoing
Generally, most healthy foods are more expensive than less healthy food. “Poor people are easy to identify because so many are obese. (Peck)” said by Anna Soubry, the Tory public health minister. The food prices have a significant impact on people who want to balance good nutrition. According to Geographic Differences in the Relative Price of Healthy Foods, the price of whole grains is 23 percent higher than that of refined grains in San Francisco, while 60 present higher in Pennsylvania and New York (Todd, Leibtag and Penberthy). Also, the price of fresh green vegetables is 20 to 80 percent higher than that of starchy vegetables in all markets across the United States (Todd, Leibtag and Penberthy). Due to the higher price of healthy food, a lot of people choose to eat unhealthy food, such as McDonald’s, especially for people who don’t want to...
Canadians work very hard to earn an honorable lifestyle however there are a lot of Canadians the still are not able to feed themselves or their family. Most food banks do not have enough donations that they give to fill people as these events rely on donations and most companies instead of donating they throw away the food causing food banks to have less amount to give to the poor (Alison Howard, 2013). This is a serious issue because people have a wrong perspective of food banks but what they don’t know is that if food companies decide to throw it away instead of donating, this causes food banks to have limited amount of supplies which results to not all individuals getting enough food, harming their dietary intake (Howard & Edge, 2013). The social determinants of this would be associated with low income families not receiving enough nutrition in their diet. This shows that families with low income do not receive enough nutrition and due to low income and lack of education, under these conditions they are unable to provide a proper diet and accept food from food banks. Also, another social statue that plays an important role is unemployment because since some people are not financially stable this causes them to have difficulty providing for their families and end up starving and face critical health conditions in their lifetime, this is one reason food banks are presented as they help provide such families
Individuals waste some $14.6 billion worth of food every year, about 47 percent of the total. This mainly consists of food items that Canadians buy with the intention of using in their homes, but never do, so it ends up eventually in a landfill or composted. This is a very sensitive environmental issue as these composting facilities create massive amount of Methane gas that are released into the environment, damaging the ozone and attributing to the man-made manipulation of the global warming/cooling process. Food manufacturing and processing is responsible for as much as one-fifth of the food wasted across the country. Ten per cent of food waste happens on the farm, before even entering the larger food system. Retailers waste another 10 per cent. Restaurants and hotels waste a further nine per cent. The rest is wasted at processing facilities such as food terminals, or during transportation. The report notes that food waste in the travel sector is especially egregious — up to five kilograms per person, per day, according to some estimates. Even using more conservative estimates, these watchdog groups say that we could feed 200,000 inhabitants of poorer countries for a year with nothing more than the food that gets wasted on European airlines every year. On international flights, regulations require any excess food be thrown out after a flight — regardless of whether it was used, cruise liners seem to be the worst culprit, generating the highest per capita food waste. Waste like that costs everyone, not just the person who
Food waste is huge issue these days. It is a huge amount of waste that ends up in landfills and can have lasting effects on the environment. One of major issues of food waste is the greenhouse gases that it produces. Methane gas is the main culprit when it comes to the gases being released. This can absorb infrared radiation and heat up the earth’s atmosphere and cause climate change. Another issue that food waste causes is, water loss due to use for production of fruits and vegetables.
According to Price et al. (1985), estimated values of the total global food loss and waste to around one third of the edible parts of food produced for human consumption, amounting to about 1.3 billion tonnes (1.28×109 long tons; 1.43×109 short tons) per year . In developing countries, like Ethiopia it is estimated that 400-500 calories per day per person are gainful