The Importance Of Combating Hunger In The United States

We have hit an all time high in people not knowing where their next meal is coming from or if they are even getting a next meal. And those of us who are lucky enough to know we have food to eat sometimes do not know what the risks are of the meal. We all should learn what those risks are, how they are affecting us as individuals and as a country and should be aware of what we can do together to reduce those risks.

Strategies we can use to save money and reduce food waste can help prevent hunger in the world. What people don’t realize is how much food they are wasting when they allow it to spoil or throw away the extra food from their plates. In the US alone 30-40% of food is wasted, which means each person wastes approximately 20 pounds of food per month. With just 15% of the food that is wasted we could feed quite a bit more than 25 million Americans every year. Did you know that one in six families goes without knowing if they will have meal on the table each day?

After you go shopping and are unloading your groceries, it is a good idea to bring all the older food items to the front of the fridge to ensure they are used first. Additionally, it is important to watch what you are throwing away so you are wasting less food. At the end of the week are you discarding almost as much as you bought because you forgot what you bought at the beginning of the week? Make a weekly plan of your meals and which day you plan to eat them. If you notice you did buy too much, it’s time to freeze some of