A brief bit on NPR about harnessing some of the good stuff out of the food waste stream:
About 40 percent of food in the United States today goes uneaten. The average American consumer wastes 10 times as much food as someone in Southeast Asia — up 50 percent from Americans in the 1970s. Yet, 1 in 6 Americans doesn't have enough to eat, says the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And food waste costs us about $165 billion a year and sucks up 25 percent of our freshwater supply.
That's all according to the report with the not-so-subtle title, "Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill," just released by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
I really have to read that whole report, because this is one of my pet peeves: all the exhortation to eat local to reduce your carbon footprint, when household and restaurant food waste slips by silently, all that energy and water that went into production, processing, packaging, and transportation gone just like that.
Maybe I'll get to it after I finish with all the post-secondary education series. In the meantime, consider putting your family on the Squawkfox Food Waste Challenge.
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