November 27, 2008, 10:08 AM
An Abundance of Food, Wasted
How much will end up in the garbage? (Evan Sung for The New York Times)
Journalist Jonathan Bloom, who chronicles food waste in America, argues that Thanksgiving is the perfect day to develop new, less wasteful food traditions.
By Jonathan Bloom
With our abundant portions and food supply, every day is like Thanksgiving for many Americans.
Jonathan Bloom
But far from celebrating food, as those Massachusetts colonists did at that first Thanksgiving, many of us have adopted wasteful traditions that devalue food. Each day, America wastes enough food to fill Madison Square Garden. Depending on which study you believe, we squander between a quarter to a half of all the food we produce. Even by the conservative estimate, that adds up to more than 100 billion pounds per year.
Healthy Holidays
30 Days of Holiday Eating
A daily series of tips, tidbits and healthy insights.
Losing Your Appetite for Turkey
Since America grows more than twice the amount of calories needed to keep its population fed, what’s the big deal? Why worry about waste?
One reason is that dumping more than 100 billion pounds of food has a financial cost. The last official estimate put that figure at $96 billion in 1997 dollars. Considering inflation, rising food prices and the fact that the amount of waste has grown with our population, that number is probably more like $150 billion now. In these lean times, the savings gleaned from reducing food waste could help pay for another stimulus package.
There is also an environmental cost to dumping food in landfills. Allowing food to rot in these giant piles creates methane, a greenhouse gas at least 20 times as potent a heat-trapper as carbon dioxide. Since landfills are America’s largest human-related source of methane emissions, cutting waste can have a measurable impact on the environment.
Finally, there is an ethical price to be paid for teaching our children that food is disposable, as successive generations of Americans have done. Thrift used to be a common American trait but has become increasingly rare the further we get from World War II and Depression-era scrimping. Because today’s youth are disconnected from how food is grown, processed and prepared, it is easier for them to squander it. They have been desensitized to waste by the constant sight of food left behind in restaurants, schools and homes.
Of course, food waste can never be eliminated. In some instances, it is unavoidable. Yet, simple awareness goes a long way. You can trim your own waste in a few easy steps:
Plan meals before shopping, taking stock of what you already have and whether you’ll have the time or inclination to cook.
Make a detailed grocery list and stick to it, avoiding impulse buys.
Serve reasonable portions, knowing family or guests can always take seconds.
Save (and eat) those leftovers! You’re saving food, not performing science projects. Simply discarding an item two weeks later does no good.
Compost. It isn’t hard, and there are even machines that allow those without backyards to compost indoors.
Fortunately, Thanksgiving is one of the few days a year when many of us instinctively take steps to prevent food waste. It’s a day when most Americans eagerly save leftovers, and the day after is probably the only time many of us look forward to eating the remains in the fridge. And the abundance of extra turkey after the main meal often prompts particularly creative uses of the whole bird. These holiday examples offer an easy template for preventing food waste throughout the year.
This Thanksgiving, let’s be aware of our food wasting and make a commitment to reverse this trend. After all, our annual autumn feast began as a way to celebrate and give thanks for the harvest’s abundance. While we may express gratitude on Thanksgiving, we fall short the rest of the year. Wasting so much food is no way to give thanks.
Jonathan Bloom is a journalist from Durham, N.C., who blogs on food waste at WastedFood.com. Earlier this year, he supplied the photos for this slideshow on wasted food.
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Well, Holiday Food, wasted food
Even cookbook authors find themselves working in less-than-perfect kitchens.
The Dollar-a-Day Diet
The dollar couple, Kerri Leonard and Christopher Greenslate.
What would you eat if you had just $1 a day for food?
This fall a couple in Encinitas, Calif., conducted their own experiment to find out what it was like to live for a month on just a dollar a day for food. Christopher Greenslate, 28, and Kerri Leonard, 29, both high school social studies teachers, quickly discovered what cash-strapped consumers have known all along. In the United States, the cheapest foods tend to be so-called junk foods — candies, chips and other processed fare that is packed with calories but devoid of nutrients. Meanwhile, fresh fruits and vegetables are priced out of reach. And living on a tight food budget adds lots of extra time and effort to meal preparation.
“We’re used to eating some type of vegetable with every meal and fruit every day,” Ms. Leonard said. “Finding out there was very little way to fit that into our budget, that was a huge struggle.”
The couple blogged about the diet project and also raised about $1,500 for a local community center. While the dollar-a-day diet was just a monthlong experiment for the couple, health researchers say their experiences reflect many of the real world conditions people on limited incomes face every day. To read more about the high price of healthful food, read this week’s Well column, “Money Is Tight, and Junk Food Beckons,” and then please join the discussion below.
An Abundance of Food, Wasted
How much will end up in the garbage? (Evan Sung for The New York Times)
Journalist Jonathan Bloom, who chronicles food waste in America, argues that Thanksgiving is the perfect day to develop new, less wasteful food traditions.
By Jonathan Bloom
With our abundant portions and food supply, every day is like Thanksgiving for many Americans.
Jonathan Bloom
But far from celebrating food, as those Massachusetts colonists did at that first Thanksgiving, many of us have adopted wasteful traditions that devalue food. Each day, America wastes enough food to fill Madison Square Garden. Depending on which study you believe, we squander between a quarter to a half of all the food we produce. Even by the conservative estimate, that adds up to more than 100 billion pounds per year.
Healthy Holidays
30 Days of Holiday Eating
A daily series of tips, tidbits and healthy insights.
Losing Your Appetite for Turkey
Since America grows more than twice the amount of calories needed to keep its population fed, what’s the big deal? Why worry about waste?
One reason is that dumping more than 100 billion pounds of food has a financial cost. The last official estimate put that figure at $96 billion in 1997 dollars. Considering inflation, rising food prices and the fact that the amount of waste has grown with our population, that number is probably more like $150 billion now. In these lean times, the savings gleaned from reducing food waste could help pay for another stimulus package.
There is also an environmental cost to dumping food in landfills. Allowing food to rot in these giant piles creates methane, a greenhouse gas at least 20 times as potent a heat-trapper as carbon dioxide. Since landfills are America’s largest human-related source of methane emissions, cutting waste can have a measurable impact on the environment.
Finally, there is an ethical price to be paid for teaching our children that food is disposable, as successive generations of Americans have done. Thrift used to be a common American trait but has become increasingly rare the further we get from World War II and Depression-era scrimping. Because today’s youth are disconnected from how food is grown, processed and prepared, it is easier for them to squander it. They have been desensitized to waste by the constant sight of food left behind in restaurants, schools and homes.
Of course, food waste can never be eliminated. In some instances, it is unavoidable. Yet, simple awareness goes a long way. You can trim your own waste in a few easy steps:
Plan meals before shopping, taking stock of what you already have and whether you’ll have the time or inclination to cook.
Make a detailed grocery list and stick to it, avoiding impulse buys.
Serve reasonable portions, knowing family or guests can always take seconds.
Save (and eat) those leftovers! You’re saving food, not performing science projects. Simply discarding an item two weeks later does no good.
Compost. It isn’t hard, and there are even machines that allow those without backyards to compost indoors.
Fortunately, Thanksgiving is one of the few days a year when many of us instinctively take steps to prevent food waste. It’s a day when most Americans eagerly save leftovers, and the day after is probably the only time many of us look forward to eating the remains in the fridge. And the abundance of extra turkey after the main meal often prompts particularly creative uses of the whole bird. These holiday examples offer an easy template for preventing food waste throughout the year.
This Thanksgiving, let’s be aware of our food wasting and make a commitment to reverse this trend. After all, our annual autumn feast began as a way to celebrate and give thanks for the harvest’s abundance. While we may express gratitude on Thanksgiving, we fall short the rest of the year. Wasting so much food is no way to give thanks.
Jonathan Bloom is a journalist from Durham, N.C., who blogs on food waste at WastedFood.com. Earlier this year, he supplied the photos for this slideshow on wasted food.
E-mail This Print Share
Well, Holiday Food, wasted food
Even cookbook authors find themselves working in less-than-perfect kitchens.
The Dollar-a-Day Diet
The dollar couple, Kerri Leonard and Christopher Greenslate.
What would you eat if you had just $1 a day for food?
This fall a couple in Encinitas, Calif., conducted their own experiment to find out what it was like to live for a month on just a dollar a day for food. Christopher Greenslate, 28, and Kerri Leonard, 29, both high school social studies teachers, quickly discovered what cash-strapped consumers have known all along. In the United States, the cheapest foods tend to be so-called junk foods — candies, chips and other processed fare that is packed with calories but devoid of nutrients. Meanwhile, fresh fruits and vegetables are priced out of reach. And living on a tight food budget adds lots of extra time and effort to meal preparation.
“We’re used to eating some type of vegetable with every meal and fruit every day,” Ms. Leonard said. “Finding out there was very little way to fit that into our budget, that was a huge struggle.”
The couple blogged about the diet project and also raised about $1,500 for a local community center. While the dollar-a-day diet was just a monthlong experiment for the couple, health researchers say their experiences reflect many of the real world conditions people on limited incomes face every day. To read more about the high price of healthful food, read this week’s Well column, “Money Is Tight, and Junk Food Beckons,” and then please join the discussion below.
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