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$165 Billion: Food Thrown Away By Americans Every Year

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Re: $165 Billion: Food Thrown Away By Americans Every Year

#11

Post by wonnage »

superic wrote: post #2

For years, I've been behind the 'stop at the grocery store every day on the way home' way of not wasting food. My wife and I have a routine that is IM around 4pm, decide on dinner, one of us stops for ingredients on our way home. At first, it seems like a pain to go every day but when you realize how little you throw away, it's fantastic. (Granted, we live in a city where hopping off of public transit to stop at the…

I do the same thing (sans the wife part) - it's a great way to always have fresh ingredients! Plus you never get stuck cooking something because it's about to go bad.

Only downside is shopping on an empty stomach...

Re: $165 Billion: Food Thrown Away By Americans Every Year

#12

Post by ars »

rayiner wrote: post #5
jessriedel wrote: post #4

If a person treats the volume of trash going into a landfill as a problem worthy of the slightest consideration, this is a good sign that they have no sense of scale and are unlikely to be worth listening to.

Do you mean value?

No, he doesn't. There's plenty of room in landfills. No one wants them near them, but we are not wanting for room.

The waste involved is a different story, but worrying about space in landfills is laughable.

Re: $165 Billion: Food Thrown Away By Americans Every Year

#13

Post by hessenwolf »

superic wrote: post #2

For years, I've been behind the 'stop at the grocery store every day on the way home' way of not wasting food. My wife and I have a routine that is IM around 4pm, decide on dinner, one of us stops for ingredients on our way home. At first, it seems like a pain to go every day but when you realize how little you throw away, it's fantastic. (Granted, we live in a city where hopping off of public transit to stop at the…

For years, I've been a stop at the grocery store every day person, and it is a disaster for me! I spend way more money, and waste more, because I buy for that meal in small quantities, and don't necessarily re-use the tail-end of the ingredients.

Back when I was poor, I used to plan 3 meals a day for 7 days plus snacks, optimising re-use of ingredients that I would purchase for that week.

This is likely just a case of penny wise, pound foolish.

Re: $165 Billion: Food Thrown Away By Americans Every Year

#14

Post by ars »

jon6 wrote: post #3

165 billion divided by the population (311 million) divided by 365 days is about $1.45. irb(main):007:0> 165e9 / 311e6 / 365.0 => 1.45355239395675 Which thankfully also is consistent with the other number mentioned in the article, $2275 for a family of 4 per year. irb(main):005:0> 2275.0 / 4 / 365 => 1.55821917808219 Doesn't seem like a lot can be done about such a small amount of waste per day..

I suspect a HUGE amount of the waste is industrial - events, parties, weddings, restaurants, things like that.

It's the same with virtually all resource usage in this country (water, energy, etc) industry uses so much compared to the average house that it's pointless to even try to conserve at home.

On a positive note it means if you actually want to conserve it's easier: There are far fewer targets to work with, and they are strongly motivated once you get them past short term thinking.

Re: $165 Billion: Food Thrown Away By Americans Every Year

#15

Post by uxfelix »

A $7 turky and a $400 iPad to Christmas this year?

Well maybe people should overthink what they shove into their machine what has to keep them running their whole life.

We need a new culture concerning the consumption of food. People should be more aware of where their food comes from and under which circumstances its "produced". Beeing selective will keep us from throwing away so much in the future.

Re: $165 Billion: Food Thrown Away By Americans Every Year

#16

Post by uxfelix »

A $7 turky and a $400 iPad to Christmas this year?

Well maybe people should overthink what they shove into their machine what has to keep them running their whole life.

We need a new culture concerning the consumption of food. People should be more aware of where their food comes from and under which circumstances its "produced". Beeing selective will keep us from throwing away so much in the future.

Re: $165 Billion: Food Thrown Away By Americans Every Year

#17

Post by cmelbye »

ollysb wrote: post #8
jon6 wrote: post #3

165 billion divided by the population (311 million) divided by 365 days is about $1.45. irb(main):007:0> 165e9 / 311e6 / 365.0 => 1.45355239395675 Which thankfully also is consistent with the other number mentioned in the article, $2275 for a family of 4 per year. irb(main):005:0> 2275.0 / 4 / 365 => 1.55821917808219 Doesn't seem like a lot can be done about such a small amount of waste per day..

I'm a little bit dumbfounded at this, that's $1.45 per day, per person in a family. Do you really consider this an insignificant sum? I'm pretty comfortable these days but there have been times in my life where that represented half my food budget for the week(student days in England). It makes me curious about food habbits. In America, if you have food remaining at the end of the meal do you automatically throw it s…

We don't automatically throw it away. It depends on the food. Is it something that would keep well, or would it be better to just throw it away? Sometimes, food kept in the fridge is neglected or forgotten about and just ends up being thrown away a few days later.

Re: $165 Billion: Food Thrown Away By Americans Every Year

#18

Post by batgaijin »

5% of our population is starving/malnourished children... http://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-facts/chi...

Everyone reading this forum has probably never come close to actually dealing with the poverty levels that afflict a surprisingly large amount of people in America. The level of accepted inequality with almost no social welfare net is atrocious.

Re: $165 Billion: Food Thrown Away By Americans Every Year

#20

Post by andyjsong »

In 2010, Americans generated 34 million tons of food waste. [1] Does anyone want to help me build a smarter refrigerator that automates food storage and notifies the household when something is about to go bad?

[1] http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/organics/food/fd-b...

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