Stop Food Waste Day

Hello AGAIN Gleaners! We are back for another special today that is near and dear to our hearts at the Gleaning Project: Stop Food Waste Day!

Here are some stats that can help you understand how Food Waste impacts you and your family as well as the globe and why it’s so important to take steps towards minimizing and eventually eliminating it!

  • 33% of all produced food globally is lost or wasted every year

  • 45% of all root crops, fruit and veggies produced globally is lost or wasted per year

  • 1866$- the annual cost of food wasted by the average American family

  • 25% of the food wasted globally could feed all 795 million undernourished people in the world!

  • 8% of all greenhouse gas emissions each year are due to food loss and waste!

What is Food Waste?

Food waste is not just the food that gets tossed out at restaurants when we can’t finish our plates, from our refrigerators when we forget about something we purchased or from the scraps we cut up and toss out because we aren’t sure what else we can do with them. Food waste is also the millions of pounds of food that rot in the field before ever leaving the farm due to it being too large, too small or not defect free enough to be profitable for the farmer (despite being totally edible!)

Where does our Food Waste come from?

Why does Food Waste hurt our planet?

  • 40% of food in the United States gets wasted—adding up to 200 BILLION dollars in waste annually.

  • 1 in 8 Americans experience food insecurity.

  • We waste 10% of our US energy budget to transport food each year and 40% of it will go directly to landfills that directly contribute to a growing waste issue as well as increasing greenhouse gas emissions. It is also a strain on the billions of dollars and manhours that are spent processing, growing and disposing of the food we waste outside of the resources that are wasted to produce food that cannot be recovered.

  • Worldwide there are around 770,000,000 food insecure people; 38,300,000 of those are located in the United States.

Individuals play a huge part in addressing the food waste problem! There are some solutions that can be put in place that can help lessen these numbers and our impact!

  • Education about expiration, sell by, best by and use by dates can lead to a huge reduction in food waste passing out of homes! Expiration dates tell consumers when the last day the product is safe to consume is but Best by dates tell you that the food will no longer be in pristine state on that date (loss of freshness, tastes, aroma or nutrients). Best by dates are quality indicators but not indicators for the last day of safety! Sell by dates tell stores how long the product is to be displayed by management but it is not a safety date such as use-by (last day of peak quality), best-by (quality) or expiration!

  • Composting and repurposing food scraps can make a huge impact! Researching and finding new ways to utilize the pieces of things that are typically thought of as just waste. For instance, did you know you can make tea out of avocado pits or that you can eat kiwi peels?

  • Education about how to store fresh produce can help too! I’m looking at you tomatoes and other nightshades that SHOULDN’T be refrigerated and nuts that SHOULD BE!. Milk should never be stored in your refrigerator door as the temperature differential when you open the door can cause faster spoiling! Lettuce and Celery can be brought back to crispy freshness by placing their stalks/ends in water (also storage in bags with holes to allow condensation to get out helps lessen sogginess)

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