Do you routinely throw $5 bills away just for kicks? Probably
not. And very few of us light candles with dollar bills, no
matter how much we may have loved Scrooge McDuck. But that’s
basically what you’re doing whenever you go grocery shopping.
According to a recent report from the Natural Resources Defense
Council, 40 percent of the food that’s grown and sold in the
United States is wasted—if we cut food waste by just a third, we
could feed every hungry person in the country. That waste comes
to the staggering cost of $2,275 per year, for a family of four.
The biggest loss category? Fresh produce. Just 48 percent of
what’s produced is eaten. The rest heads to landfills (or the
compost pile). Another report from the United Nations pointed
the finger, in developed countries at least, squarely at grocery
stores and consumers, in part because the former pushes “great
bargains” that encourage the latter to buy more than they need.
The solution, though, isn’t cutting back on your fresh produce
purchases. It’s gett