50% of All Food Produced Is Wasted

Big corporations that destroyed the simple ways of community living ..

HERE So many people. So little land and water. That’s why we write about peak food and peak fertilizer and peak water. People have been saying for years that we are running out of food. Yet TreeHugger has been saying for years that 40% of the world’s food is wasted, in the fields, in storage and transport, in the preparation and selling of it, on our plates and in our fridges. Now a new report from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers tells us, as Brad Plumer put it, that “Between 30 and 50 percent of all the food that’s produced on the planet is lost and wasted without ever reaching human stomachs.” More in TreeHugger

The Impact of Food Waste on Climate Change (And Just About Everything Else)

It is estimated that 40% of the food produced in America is wasted; it amounts to 1400 calories per person every day. According to the EPA, 31 million tons is thrown into landfills. Much of that produces methane as it rots; the gas is 25 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The UK website Next Generation Food estimates that each tonne of food waste is equivalent to 4.2 tonnes of CO2. They conclude that if we simply stopped wasting food, it would be the equivalent of taking a quarter of all the cars in America off the road. More in TreeHugger

Study Finds Half of All Food Produced Worldwide is Wasted

Anybody who has ever eaten at a buffet or gone to a supermarket knows how much food we waste on a regular basis. You needn’t be a devoted freegan to appreciate just how much of the food we throw away is still in near-pristine condition. As if wasting all that food weren’t bad enough, one can only imagine the vast quantities water that get frittered away worldwide during production (too much). More in TreeHugger

More than £12 Billion in Food Waste Goes in the Garbage Every Year in U.K.

5.3 million tonnes of food and drink that could have been consumed goes in the trash every year in the U.K., according to a new report. Household Food ad Waste in the UK [pdf] details the “food waste mountain” effectively growing in landfills from the wasted food and drink. More in TreeHugger