Wasted food is a huge problem in the US. Americans waste a ton
of food — every 0.7 seconds, to be exact. Our friends over at
OnEarth have an eye-opening article on food waste that really
shows how this problem translates into other wasted resources:
25% of the water we use and 4% of the oil we burn goes toward
producing food that no one is ever going to eat. Food is the
single largest source of waste in the state of California,
accounting for at least 15% of the garbage that’s picked up
every day. Picture this: a garbage man pulls up to the curb in
his big diesel-burning truck, steps out to pick up a bag full of
your wasted food, which he hauls past a hungry homeless person.
I’ve heard lots of parents tell their kids about starving
children in Africa as a means to get them to finish their
broccoli. Having rich Americans eat more isn’t going to solve
the problem of food waste — that’s only going to aggravate our
obesity problem. The real solutions to the food waste problem
are right in front of us: reduce, reu