Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Wasted Food

I often see references to the large amount of food wasted in America. Finally, here is a summary of how that waste occurs:
Food is wasted at all levels. Farmers growing vegetables will plow under their crops if they learn that the selling price has gone below the harvesting cost. Retailers and distributors throw food away as it approaches its "sell by" date. ... Households account for about 15 percent of total food loss.
This is important, as some writers suggest that personal management of food could alleviate hunger -- that would only save 15%, not insignificant, but not the main problem. Connecting this in some snarky way to the obesity "epidemic" is also not very useful.

1 comment:

Jen said...

This is something I think about a lot. We are such a consumer oriented society, and that goes to food as well. I'm not going to comment further because my thinking is still very muddled on this subject.