Food wasted, never tasted
March 4, 2014 at 10:21 pm 1 comment
I want to share a commentary, a bit of “food for thought” if you will, I recently wrote after reading an article on Minnesota Public Radio regarding the massive amount of food waste in the United States.
The USDA did the math and figured out that all the food we trash in the US is equivalent to 141 trillion calories, or 1,249 calories per capita per day.
That’s interesting, but lets put this in even more perspective. I did a little more math using the recommended daily caloric intake of 2,000 calories for the average person. All that food we throw? It’s enough calories to feed approximately 193 million people, EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR.
The USDA also estimates that in 2012, 14.5% of households were “food insecure.” The USDA defines food-insecure as households that had “difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources.” If you figure that the average household is 2.6 people, that is approximately 116 million Americans who at some point (probably more than once) in the year did not know how they would get enough to eat.
So, here it is, plain and simple. We’ve got 116 million people who go hungry for lack of resources at some point in the year. We are trashing enough food to feed 193 million a day. Now, you do the math.
Entry filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: food waste.
foodaccordingtoemily 
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Kathy Mitro | March 16, 2014 at 6:00 am
I have been after saving this food for years now. We must have mandatory food rescue donation laws for large food establishments. Food especially meat which is so expensive to produce as food and which an animal has given the ultimate sacrifice,it’s life to feed others must never be discarded as trash. This food must be flash frozen before spoilage into donation freezers giving it an incredibly long shelf life and donated to feed our hungry. I have done the math and there is enough food thrown away each day in the United States and other developed countries to feed every hungry man, woman and child. We just motivate those with the power to issue such a mandate to act.