With much talk surrounding our ability as agriculturalists to feed 9 billion people by the year 2050, a recent Washington Post article reminded us of another big food issue: food waste.
The article highlighted the fact that roughly a third of the food produced worldwide never gets eaten. The problem is even more pronounced in developed countries. In the U.S., for instance, as much as 40 percent of the food supply ends up being thrown away.
In 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that Americans threw out roughly 35 million tons of food. That was up almost 20 percent from 2000, 50 percent from 1990 and nearly three times higher than it was in 1960 when the country threw out 12.2 million tons of uneaten food.
About one-fifth of dairy and meat products are never actually consumed, which seems like a lot but pales in comparison to some other foods. For example, Americans toss out an estimated 38 percent of grains, 50 percent of seafood, and 52 percent of fruits and vegetables.
Food that doesn't make it to people's mouths creates another problem, too; it takes up valuable space in landfills. Twenty-five years ago, food made up less than 10 percent of our total waste, but today it accounts for over one-fifth of the country's garbage. More food is thrown out than plastic, paper, metal, wood, glass or rubber.
And while all this food is going to waste, one in every nine people in the world still face hunger. As we further enhance agricultural production to feed a growing world population, it appears another piece of the puzzle will be finding ways to get food onto people's plates and keep it out of landfills.
