How much Food do you Waste?

[LisaN]

Iowa Avenue’s foundation is predicated upon all of us being aware of the amount and types of foods we consume.

We discuss what we eat, compare and contrast our experiences and issues about diet, fats, the consumption of fruits and vegetables, and so much more.

But do we watch what we don’t eat?

The New York Times recently featured a study that highlighted the enormous amount of food that’s wasted, just in the USA alone.

In 1995, Americans wasted 96.4 billion pounds of edible food. This figure includes individual consumers, grocery stores, restaurants, cafeterias and other commercial users. For a family of four that equates to almost 122 pounds per month of food, that could have been eaten.

The following is an example how much a family of four--based on the eight food groups—wasted:

• 18.5 pounds of grain
• 10.4 pounds of meat and fish
• 15 pounds of sweeteners
• 8.6 pounds of fat and oils
• 24 pounds of fresh fruit and vegetables
• 10.5 pound of processed fruits and vegetables
• 22 pounds of fluid milk
• 12.8 pounds of other food including; nuts, eggs, dried beans, and dairy other than milk

In this day and age of rising food prices, it just doesn’t pay to be so wasteful—not that it ever did to be frank.

Indeed, most of the food shown here was probably gathered directly from the food industry, but still the question remains, how much food does each of us waste?

In another example of wasting food

Jonathan, at Wasted Food, is talking about an experiment performed at Virginia Tech:

Students at Virginia Tech recently tried a social experiment to measure food waste by students. In order to shed light on this issue they are comparing the use of using trays v not using trays.

The experiment includes measuring the amount of food wasted by students that use their cafeteria trays that fit multiple plates v the use of single plates without the trays.

Most commissaries on college campus’ offer “all-you-can-eat” for the students.

The first part of the study has been posted, which concludes that each student wastes about a half pound of edible waste per meal, a staggering statistic.

Most universities have a sizable enrollment so you can do the math.

Jonathan is keeping us in suspense and waiting to tell his readers what the results of the “trayless” experiment were. I’ll post the results as soon as he posts them.

How much food do you waste? What can you do to eliminate waste in your kitchen or dining room?

What you don’t eat is as important as what you do eat, because

After all, it’s about a healthy lifestyle!

© Iowa Avenue

Photo courtesy of jbloom

Source: United States Department of Agriculture; Census Bureau