Is it food waste—or future food?
Before you toss out that limp celery or stale bread, look at it again. Food waste is an environmental and social problem—but it doesn’t need to be. Let’s rethink our perfectly good food.
Think of your last grocery haul. Can you picture it? Focus on the fresh fruits you nabbed as you entered the store and the leafy greens you tossed in the cart. Think of the onions or celery, the bread, and the cheeses. Did you grab any fish?
As you pulled out your card to pay the bill, what if we told you that one-third of everything in your cart would end up in the trash?
Whether you went into the store for a few dinner supplies or a full fridge restock, you likely bought more than you could use. It’s a problem for your pocketbook, yes. But it’s a much larger social and environmental problem too.
The far-reaching toll of food waste
The way that food is packaged and marketed makes it difficult to regulate how much we buy and limits our ability to buy small amounts or to divide and share our food with neighbors or local food banks, who cannot usually—and rightfully so—accept opened or used products.
So, it’s hard to imagine that we can tackle the social problems associated with hunger through the lens of individual food waste.
We can, however, consider the financial and environmental impact of food waste, and from there see positive changes in the cost and availability of food for more people.
Tossing out our money
According to the Government Accountability Office, “Last year, U.S. consumers saw the largest annual increase in food prices since the 1980s. While food prices generally increased about 2% in prior years, they increased about 11% from 2021 to 2022.”
And while food prices have started to level off on the whole, they are still 5 percent higher than those elevated 2022 prices, and some items, like butter and eggs, have more than doubled in price.
I don’t know about you, but I would not want to calculate the total amount of money I spent on food that ended up in the compost or trash over the last year.
Contributing to greenhouse gasses
Even if we’re annoyed at the money we spent on food we’re tossing, we may not be thinking of the ecological costs.
The resources used to grow, harvest, process, and transport that food go to waste, too. This means water, land, energy, and labor are squandered. And discarded food generates greenhouse gasses as it decomposes in landfills, contributing to climate change.
According to a 2021 report by the Environmental Protection Agency, “Over one-third of the food produced in the United States is never eaten... Food waste is the single most common material landfilled and incinerated in the United States, comprising 24 and 22 percent of landfilled and combusted municipal solid waste.”
In plain language, that means that one-fourth of our landfills are filled with our wasted food which then emits in a single year the greenhouse gasses of more than 42 coal-fired power plants and wastes enough water and energy to supply more than 50 million homes. (Source: EPA)
And consider this staggering stat from a 2021 Washington Post article:
The carbon footprint of U.S. food waste is greater than that of the airline industry. Globally, wasted food accounts for about 8 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. The environmental consequences of producing food that no one eats are massive.
How to throw out less food
About 36 percent of food waste happens in individual homes. That’s you and me buying ingredients we intend to use, but don’t, then throwing them out.
Here are just a few ways to save your money and contribute less to landfills. Some of the items on this list may not be feasible for your situation. Ignore those and find what works for you.
Buy fewer groceries at once. If it’s possible for you, consider more frequent and smaller trips to the store, buying only what you need for your upcoming meals.
Split what you get. Whether you’re getting takeout and can’t eat it all or buying a bunch of herbs when you only need two tablespoons. Offer up the extra to a friend or neighbor, make a plan to split costs, or put half of it immediately in the freezer.
Turn it into jam, juice, stock, or pickles. It turns out you can make jam easily and out of a surprising number of things—tomato jam is delicious and onion jam, divine. The same goes for turning surplus into long-lasting pickled condiments or turning excess veggies into juice or stock. The Internet is flush with these recipes, including here on our site! Check out this wellness juice and this herb-infused vinegar goodness.
Create an “eat me first” section of your fridge. We got this idea from the folks at Food Waste Feast. Simply place food that needs to be eaten in a designated place and look there first when it’s time to cook or snack.
Freeze it. You can freeze and save almost anything.
If all else fails, compost. Despite our best efforts, there will always be some food waste. Even if you don't have a backyard, your city or a local farm may offer a composting program.
How wasting less food can help the hungry
According to the World Food Programme, “Right now, the world produces enough food to nourish every child, woman and man on the planet. … All the food produced but never eaten would be sufficient to feed two billion people.”
Of course, getting excess food to hungry people is a bigger matter. But when we buy less, we create surpluses that help food prices decrease for everyone. And when we share food instead of letting it go to waste, we create social bonds that prevent people from slipping into hunger during times of crisis.
And imagine what we might do with enough water and energy to supply 50 million homes annually. How might that too free up resources for more people?
We don’t have the answer to completely end global hunger and the climate crisis. But we remain committed to a world with less trash and waste because surely that is the direction of a more sustainable future.