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American diet
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One of the things that Americans take advantage of every day is the the seemingly endless amount of food. No matter where you go, it is almost ridiculous how easy it can be to get food in America, especially if you compare us to some less developed nations. However, what we don’t think about is how much of that that ends up thrown away and how it effects of the world around us.
Approximately 25-40% of food grown, processed and transported in the U.S will never be consumed and more food reaches landfills and incinerators than any other material. (Food Waste in America) There are many reasons that contribute to the large amount of food going to waste in America. Two of the biggest are the large demand that the “western diet” entails and human
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psychology. Companies produce an extremely large amount of food in order to meet the high demands of a culture obsessed with overconsumption.
However, farmers will throw out a large amount of food just because of “cosmetic imperfections”. (Mercola) Why do they do this? Because, a product that doesn’t “look right” won’t sell, because people perceive there to be something wrong with the food if it doesn’t look to their expectations. The farms and grocery stores aren’t the only places where mass food waste occurs. Half of the edible seafood is wasted each year, whether it’s lost during distribution, thrown out cause it’s the “wrong species” or thrown away by consumers. (Mercola) Which leads us to the next place where large amount of food waste occurs, in the kitchens of consumers. According to the USDA the average U.S family of 4, waste more than 2 million calories, which equates to $1500 worth of food …show more content…
every year and the average American induvial throws out approximately 273 pounds of food annually. (Mercola) All these statistics are disturbing when you consider the families living in the U.S who struggle to put food on their tables daily. Which leads to the first problem about the amount of food being wasted in America, there are those who could use it but, will never see it. The amount of U.S families suffering from hunger has been increasing in recent decades. As of 2012 the number of people suffering from hunger in the U.S has increased to 48 million, which is five times more since the 1960’s and a 57 percent increase since the late 1990’s. (McMillan) On top of that, a recent survey has shown that one in six Americans report running out of food at least once a year. (McMillan) You may be asking yourself, how in a country famous for being a land of plenty can have such a large hunger problem. Well, it all comes down to the economy, the cost of living has gone up while wages have not, thus making it harder for lower or even middle income families to put food on the table. Now imagine if there was a way to bring the food amount of food that is being wasted to the families that need it. Another problem that comes with such a large amount of food waste is the environmental impact that it can have on our world. For example, when food is dispensed into a landfill, it rots and becomes methane, a strong greenhouse gas with 21 times the global warming potential than carbon dioxide. (Food Waste in America) Another example is the damage to the soil caused by the commercial farming techniques to keep up with demands of the western diet. The cheapest and most subsidized crops are corn and soy, as a result farmers focus on growing these crops and don’t properly rotate their crops which leads depletes the nutrients in the soil. They use commercial fertilizers which add nitrogen phosphorus and potassium but fail to replace any other nutrients in the soil, which slowly lowers the quality of what is being grown. The USDA has been tracking the nutritional quality of our produce since 1950’s and has seen a steady decline over the decades, that they blame on lack of soil nutrient depletion and over reckless use of fertilizers. (How are Food and the Environment Related) Another problem with the commercial farming industry, is the use of environmental toxins known as xenobiotics in their pesticides, herbicides and packaging, all which could lead to damage to the environment. In recent years, America has been increasing receiving food from outside its borders, which increases the amount of emissions due to the burning of fuels required to ship the food from wherever it came from. (How are Food and the Environment Related) I personally see massive food waste almost on a daily basis.
See I work at a grocery store and just like many businesses throwing away perfectly good food is just daily routine there. The reasons vary from the looks of the product, the product staying on the shelf past its shelf life or a customer returning something after they decided they “didn’t need it” but because of company policy we have to throw it out even if the product is perfectly fine. Every time I see the dumpster at the end of each night I can’t but wonder if there is a better
way.
Walsh, Bryan. “America’s Food Crisis.” NEXUS. Eds. Kim and Michael Flachmann. Boston: Pearson, 2012. 166 – 173. Print.
As the world population grows so does the amount of people that live without the proper amount of nutrition and food. Hunger in America can be hard to recognize and many people do not realize that hunger and malnutrition is a problem that many Americans face every day. America is the land of plenty and one of the most powerful and wealthy countries in the world, however is well known that is subject to problem such as starvation, considered as “third-world problem”. For decades, Americans have gone above and beyond to aid other countries that were faced with problems such as malnutrition and hunger. Sadly, the US has failed to aid them and millions are currently suffering from hunger. In addition, with how the economy is now, the effects of hunger are getting worse every day. Many Americans are relying and most of them depend on food stamps and private organizations to help with this crisis. The documentary, “A Place at the Table” by Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush present some issues and real life story to explain what is really happening and how hunger and obesity are not problems on opposite ends of a spectrum, but are in fact intricately linked. Poor nutrition, health problem and poverty are all related.
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.
According to the film, America throws away 96 million pounds of food every year. Much of this food is edible. Based upon a U.S. Department of Agriculture report in 1996 (cited in the film), if we could recover 25% of food that is wasted, we could feed 20 million people. In addition to the lost opportunity of feeding hungry Americans, the wasted food contributes to ever-growing landfills
Though many will see this as only having an affect on Americans, this wastefulness affects everyone on a global scale. Samuel Blackstone wrote the article Waste management: Food waste is a massive global problem, but the solution starts with your Thanksgiving leftovers in 2016 which states “food that is grown but ultimately wasted occupies 1.4 billion hectares of land, representing 30 percent of the world’s entire agricultural land area.”. We may not cause all the worlds food waste, but the waste that we do cause needs to be
In the article Food Waste is Becoming Serious Economic and Environmental Issue, Report Says, by Ron Nixon, food waste is described as being a serious matter and an environmental issue. This article describes that food waste is affecting the whole world and the people in it. People in poverty are struggling to have enough to eat while tons of food is being thrown away. “About 60 million metric tons of food is wasted in the United States… about 3.3 metric tons of it end up in landfills”. About a third of all the food made in the world is disposed of and never eaten. Organizations are trying to take action and stop the waste of food. The food that is abandoned is more than enough to feed all of the world’s 870 million hungry people. The food waste
Even in the developing countries, they are losing an enormous amount of food in the landfill which will help them solve their starvation problem. In Canada, we are wasting about “$31 billion” worth of food annually (Chavich). The food produced on the planet is enough reported by The Food and the Agriculture Organization of UN “to feed the 795 million people who go hungry…” (Chapman 2). The organization also said that since the population is growing rapidly each year “reducing waste will be key to feeding 9 billion people” that will grow by “2050” (Chapman 2). Canadians need to wake up and start taking steps to solve this problem. Each person’s effort count. In Canada, food waste is happening at every level of food supply chain. The food waste is increasing rapidly. The reasons are farmers, supermarkets, and
The scary reality is that, according to the book American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It), “landfilling of food is on the rise – the rate doubled from 1980 to 2007” (Bloom 15). This reality leads to a number of negative consequences such as an increase in methane production and pollution. “Most food waste, approximately 33 million tons, is disposed in landfills, costing $750 million and accounting for 25% of U.S methane emissions” (Uga.edu).
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
Researchers of Business Insider found that, “every year, the US throws away one third of all the food
Because of the wealth allocation around the world, developed countries are capable of purchasing the high quality food without pollution in their own countries. America has a higher purchasing power than most of developing countries that depends on their economy. Since agriculture is the only way to eat healthy and America does not have enough people to work on farms all day, the country will purchase its food from other developing countries. Meanwhile, American purchases food from developing countries is very convenient and affordable for themselves; the country strives to import as much food as it is available to make sure that its citizens stay healthy. In the end, the producing country only leaves with very little to high quality food for their own citizen. Some developing countries heavily rely on exports for the economy to run their countries. Although those producing countries can relieve their financial problems, many of people still confront
“Let food be thy medicine”, a relevant and timeless quote from Hippocrates almost two thousand years ago. Culture, is the entire way of life, of a group of people and acts as a lens, through which one views the world and is passed from one generation to the next. Food culture refers to the practices, attitudes, and beliefs as well as the networks and institutions surrounding the production, distribution, and consumption of food. With the evolution of food culture, from drive-ins, microwavable/canned meals, and fast food, Americans are eating worse and worse every day. Near the beginning of the twentieth century Americans consume around 120 pounds of meat annually, by 2007 that figure went up to no less than 222 pounds. American consumption
A documentary film “Wasted! The Story of Food Waste” is about famous chefs from around the world sharing their thoughts about food waste. In like manner, the chefs describe waste as a n ugly form of food, but every chef’s goal is transforming them and making it into something that people would appreciate and be engaged in eating it again. Furthermore, waste should be looked differently because it needs more attention for it to be properly cooked and serve to others. With the creativity that most chefs do, food waste will decrease in restaurants around the world. This movement will inspire not just the other chefs who do it as a profession but also the people who cook at home to be creative when dealing with leftovers and be successful when recycling it so that there will be no waste to be made. As an old school chef, Anthony Bourdain said that he follows the method of “use everything, waste nothing” because for him it’s a disgrace to waste food since it has been his passion all his life (Wasted! The Story of Food Waste). Additionally, we can start this through the amount of groceries we buy when shopping because if we start minimizing our shopping carts, it will force us to use what we have rather than overusing the food just because we have an abundant supply of
Food waste is defined by food that is lost, wasted, or discarded and is caused through a few different processes. Food is wasted through many different ways at farms, grocery stores, and in homes. Over 40% of the food in the United States, specifically, goes to waste and 97% percent of this waste goes straight to landfills. The main issue with food waste is that the majority of food is being wasted unnecessarily. In stores, food is often thrown out because it does not meet specific standards that dictate what may be desirable to consumers. This issue of food picking is important as foods are not always being thrown away because they have gone bad, but because they have appearances that do not seem attractive. If we hope to lessen the environmental impact we have as a result of the mass
Currently, magnitude amounts of waste materials generated from household and industries have become one of the main factors to cause environmental pollution. Especially, as for the leftover food, the portion of leftover food out of total wastes has been continuously increased. Increases in feed cost for animal production motivated to recycle leftover food into animal feed (Cho et al., 2004a). Recycling leftover foods into animal feed has become one of the most important.