What’s growing in your veggie drawer?
My visit to South Africa is a memory I’ll carry for the rest of my life. Seeing giraffes cross the road, watching elephants play like my dairy calves and holding a baby lion was amazing. Harvesting grapes at a vineyard and sampling wine was a delight for the senses.
But what is seared in my mind forever are the eyes of hungry children. Children who live in squatter’s camps by the millions. Children who don’t care about the politics of food, but only where they can get their next meal.
I’ve seen those same eyes in Egypt from children begging. And in the Ukraine shortly after communism fell. Then back in Indiana when my daughter started school and had hungry classmates.
The debate we have around food in developed countries is a very privileged one. Yet, even in the U.S., one in six people go hungry. That number rises globally. Yet today it is more righteous to debate the politics of food than the very real problem of hunger. As Reagan noted, it’s difficult to believe people are still starving in this country.
What’s the answer to food insecurity and hunger? It is a multi-faceted answer; part of which has to be solving food waste in this country.
“It’s difficult to believe that people are still
starving in this country because
food isn’t
available.”
~ Ronald Reagan
Did you know Americans throw away 40 percent of the country’s food supply? Fresh fruits and vegetables account for 22 percent of total food loss from retail, restaurants and household? Processed fruits and vegetables add another eight percent – nearly one-third the total food wasted. That’s a whole lot of smelly fruits and veggies!4
I’m just as guilty as anyone – my veggies sometimes ferment into lettuce silage and fruit goes unnoticed in the back of the refrigerator until it is a pile of brown mush. How does your refrigerator look?
Most waste happens at a consumer level. We let food go bad in the fridge, or misunderstand the meaning of expiration dates and throw away food before it’s expired. But some waste happens at the production and retail levels – produce that isn’t perfect may not be harvested on the farm, and restaurants and grocery stores toss food before it’s spoiled to make room for new shipments.
USDA and EPA announced the first-ever food waste reduction goal for the U.S. In 2015, calling for a fifty percent reduction by 2030. Food is the single biggest contributor to landfills today: 133 billion pounds of it end up in dumpsters each year in America.
We trash about $162 billion worth of food across the nation, which uses up about 25 percent of the US water supply and produces 33 million cars’ worth of greenhouse gases annually. When in landfills, food waste releases methane, a greenhouse gas. Yet, one in six Americans live in food insecurity and many of those have little access to produce?
Read more at Food Truths to Farm to Table and take a trip around the grocery store to be armed with 25 truths you urgently need to know about food so you can shop without guilt, confusion, or judgment. Learn the truths so you can recognize marketing and move on. A new book, Food Bullying, is expected late 2019.
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