Over $165 BILLION in food waste and 25 Million people to feed, What you need to know and can do

People are wasting billions in food, however few know why or how. Reducing food waste can save us billions in costs every year and feed millions. There are many tools from mobile apps to how we buy food that can help us reduce this waste.
By: John Williams
 
SEATTLE - March 17, 2013 - PRLog -- Everyone has gone through the mystery machine that is our refrigerators only to discover “Oh yeah I have _____, and I forgot to make ___.”   When rummaging through the refrigerator it's not uncommon to move the milk aside to find last week's leftovers starting to congeal and deteriorate. Often testing with a quick whiff to determine if its more likely to give you food poisoning than a satisfied stomach. Once you decided it is not worth the risk then it’s then tossed into the garbage. This plays out in refrigerators and pantries across the world, but none more so than in the U.S. In the U.S. we throw away $165 BILLION in food every year, which is enough to feed over 25 MILLION PEOPLE!

Americans are wasteful, usually not intentionally however the average family throws out between 14-25% of the food they buy annually, which adds up to about $1,365-$2,275 a year. How’s that for the cost of moldy bread?

We are characteristically bad about prioritizing what to eat before it spoils. In an ideal world with alternate versions of ourselves, we would like to think that we’ll remember to eat last night’s leftovers. The sad truth is that the majority of people will simply wait a few days then throw out those left over to make room for whatever they just bought. Even the best intentions create waste and most of us forget all but the best food in the back of the fridge.

So the question becomes; what to do about it? Keeping track of food and when it’s about to go bad is a chore that's easily forgotten because we don’t see the cost of the approaching expiration date. There are many mobile applications and different ways to track your food. For example a recently developed mobile app called Recipes By Ingredients allows you to enter ingredients and food you have in your pantry. This is a great feature for helping you remember what food you have on hand. Currently it is on iOS, Android, Amazon, Chrome, Blackberry 10, and Windows Phone. So there is no excuse not to download it.

Link to Download on Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.abMobile.recipebyingredient

Link to Download on Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/recipes-by-ingredients/id605509474?ls=1&mt=8

Food waste doesn’t just come from our kitchens or from the table, it is present throughout the entire food production system. From when we buy food, prepare it, to farms, suppliers, and retailers, the system creates gargantuan amounts of waste.

Part of the blame goes to our purchasing habits. We often buy and cook in bulk because it’s cheaper and we’re worried that if we don’t use the 5 pounds of carrots we just bought, they’ll go bad. Instead of cooking the amount of food they need, people over cook for leftovers or over eat. As a country, generally people like large portions because they make us feel like we're getting more and that it’s a better value. The main fear driving this is that when we get up from table, we won’t feel satisfied or will still be hungry--the result is that we’ll end up cooking an extra helping of mashed potatoes just to eat as filler. But there is a cost to that fear and it’s not only killing our wallets, it’s influencing what food is being produced and stocked in our local grocery stores. Thinking that you’re the only person in the line from soil to mouth as the end consumer is not exactly right either. There are many hands that move the food we buy and arrange it into displays that will catch our eye; these are just as much at fault as the consumer. It’s a cycle that starts with fear and is perpetuated by producer’s interpretations of what we want.

Salt, sugar, preservatives, refrigeration, flash freezing. Technology continues to advance to provide better preserved foods that will enable them to last longer after they are first picked until ending up on your plate. These techniques enable our society to feed everyone abundantly. Creating foods that are healthy compared to extending the shelf life of products is a balancing act that the market has been unsuccessfully trying to get right. Only recently has there been a new focus on eating healthy. As new health crazes pop up, the market now knows that promoting something healthy but sometimes they are misleading and are actually worse for you than normal market alternatives.

Taking out the hands that touch your food before you take a bite can reduce the amount of waste in the supply chain. Cooking at home with fresh, natural ingredients helps reduce food waste. You can even go a step further by selecting foods that are in season or grown locally. Buying foods that are in season also saves you money compared to buying out-of-season foods like strawberries in the middle of winter, which had to have been grown either far away or treated with extra preservatives to make them last long enough to get to you. Foods that are in season taste better too--fresh greens at harvest time added to a meal can make the difference between an ok meal to one that fetches compliments around the table.

Giving a shot at cooking for yourself can help make a difference in the big picture. Go against the market driven fear of leaving the table hungry and try cooking correct portion sizes with fresh ingredients. Technology helps to make searching for healthy recipes less daunting. Some smartphone apps, like Recipes by Ingredients, make recipe searches even easier and have features built in that allow specific searches based on what food you already have on hand, which helps to decrease wasted food.

Sources:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.abMobile.recipebyingredient

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/recipes-by-ingredients/id605509474?ls=1&mt=8

http://www.abmobileapps.com/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/22/how-food-actually-gets-wasted-in-the-united-states/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-robbins/the-dark-side-of-vitaminw_b_669716.html?ref=twitter

http://www.businessinsider.com/americans-waste-165-billion-in-food-per-year-ndrc-2012-8
End
Source:John Williams
Email:***@gmail.com
Tags:American, Food Waste, Business, Save, Mobile App
Industry:Food, Business
Location:Seattle - Washington - United States
Account Email Address Verified     Account Phone Number Verified     Disclaimer     Report Abuse
AB Mobile Apps PRs
Trending News
Most Viewed
Top Daily News



Like PRLog?
9K2K1K
Click to Share