There’s a great feature on food waste in the August issue of Alive Magazine. Here’s an excerpt, but there’s much more if you click on the link.
In Canada, we throw away more food per year than Africa produces. This figure may seem shocking, but there’s no denying the cost of food waste—nearly $31 billion a year. Learn more about the social and environmental impact of wasted food, and how you can cut down on unnecessary throwaways.
As Canadians, we each toss out the equivalent of two apples a day. It may not sound like much, but if we also factor in kitchen scraps, plus wastage/spoilage in restaurants, hotels, and other food-serving facilities, along with what’s thrown out along the food chain, those two apples become the proverbial barrel.
A massive loss
Worldwide, 1.3 billion metric tonnes (2.9 trillion lb) of food is lost or wasted each year—about one-third of the food produced for us to eat.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations calls food losses “a significant cost to the world economy [that] greatly impacts our ability to feed the world.” The FAO wrote in a recent report that food waste compromises efforts to
- combat hunger
- raise income
- improve food security
In developed countries, wastage usually occurs at the consumer level, meaning that food is thrown out even though it’s still fit for eating.
Read the rest of the article here.