Abstract:
Food waste contributes to excess consumption of freshwater and fossil fuels which, along with methane and CO2 emissions from decomposing food, impacts global climate change. Here, we calculate the energy content of nationwide food waste from the difference between the US food supply and the food consumed by the population. The latter was estimated using a validated mathematical model of metabolism relating body weight to the amount of food eaten. We found that US per capita food waste has progressively increased by ,50% since 1974 reaching more than 1400 kcal per person per day or 150 trillion kcal per year. Food waste now accounts for more than one quarter of the total freshwater consumption and ~300 million barrels of oil per year.Comment: I come from a generation that worried about waste. As a kid during World War II I saved tin foil and rubber bands and collected paper for paper drives. More importantly, my folks saved to send food parcels to their family in Europe not only during but after the war. It is not surprising therefore that my family now works to recycle garbage, uses more fresh food than processed, we carry bags to the market to avoid plastic, and we have a hybrid car.
Note too that we get a lot of our protein from meat and a lot of that meat is beef. It is estimated that it takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef. Not only is the environmental footprint much smaller from the consumption of protein from legumes, we would be healthier if we got more of our protein from vegetable sources, or at least from leaner animal sources. JAD
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