I was interested in a small story that came through on email yesterday regarding the potential for saving energy simply by not wasting food. The American Chemical Society estimates that the US alone could save the energy equivalent of 35o million barrels of oil per year without spending a penny, or reducing quality of life, just by not wasting food.
It takes the equivalent of about 1.4 billion barrels of oil to produce, package, prepare, preserve and distribute a year’s worth of food in the United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that people in the U.S. waste about 27 percent of their food. That’s a huge potential energy saving.
Percentage of Various Foods Wasted in the U.S.
Fats and oils 33%
Dairy 32%
Grains 32%
Eggs 31%
Sugar and other caloric sweeteners 31%
Vegetables 25%
Fruit 23%
Meat, poultry, fish 16%
Dry beans, peas, lentils 16%
Tree nuts and peanuts 16%
I wonder how New Zealand would compare? I have to confess that I’m a bit of a food waster. Veges often end up in the compost bin because they go bad before I get to them. I also have to admit that despite my best intentions, I’m pretty shocking when it comes to eating leftovers! I always cook too much and quite a bit of it ends up in the bin.
So how can we reduce the amount of food that we waste? For starters we could get the supermarkets to sell vegetables that don’t go off within 3 days of purchase…
I used to be the same – I solved it by buying frozen veges.
It would be harder for you having MPs hours and stuff.
…we could get the supermarkets to sell vegetables that don’t go off within 3 days of purchase…
Huh?
Assuming you’re talking fresh food here.
That’s probably a result of the supermarket trying not to waste them. To ensure that they have enough to cover all purchases the super-markets buy more than they need. Whatever isn’t sold is thrown out. To do what you say would probably result in more waste. The other option is that the super-market won’t buy as much in the first place which may result in shortages.
Then there’s storage. I grew up in an old 1950s brick house which had an enclosed porch with shelving. This porch was dark and cool. In other words, ideal for storing fresh veges. They certainly seem to have lasted longer there than what they do in the fridge today (and saved on power and room in the fridge).
Lower the price of fresh food, it mean more people buy it, less of it goes off in the supermarket. Or just freeze things failing that. It better than wasting food!
I would have thought that the wastage of dry beans, peas and lentils would have been much, much higher. And don’t go blaming the supermarkets because you don’t eat all your veges. You naughty boy.
Very thoughtful post Chris, and I suppose it highlights again that we can all make a difference by making quite small changes to the way we lead our lives and help the environment.
I always eat my leftovers. When I grew up it was very poor form to waste food, both disrespectful to the cook. My old mum used to say “think of all the starving children”. I’m not sure how me eating more helped them, but there are a lot of little things we can do.
Most food goes off that quickly if it’s not in season and it’s already been in storage for months. Buy fresh fruit and veges in season (or better yet grow your own, and only pick what you’re ready to eat) and they will last much longer.
I very rarely waste food but that is part of being a student I guess my parents waste quite a lot. It still is not going to be as high for private consumers as the 27% from that study.
Restaurants waste a whole load of food they serve to customers that doesnt get eaten or that doesn’t end up getting used that evening but cannot be used again because it is not fresh enough.
Supermarkets have to chuck a whole lot of food that goes off because they can’t predict customers that well.
Functions are often done by hiring private caterers as a result of the rules around ownership of the goods usually it is all thrown away at the end of the event even if not opened sometimes.
Some food retailers like Zespri also deliberately destroy some of their produce in order to drive prices up to make their growing more worthwhile.
This is not to mention the amount of food lost or wasted during production which is not accounted for in the 27%. A lot of food wastage cannot be helped by the actual customers and is down to needing our companies to adopt better practices in working out how much they need to order.
…saying this the data is 15 years old for food wastage. It would be interesting to know what it is today could well be higher for normal consumers today.
The picture of food waste looks worse when you consider the amount of homeless and hungry people in the US.
So how would you get fresh food to last longer? Genetic modification maybe?? Oh, hang on…
like Spud I tend to use frozen veges – more convenient too. But fruit doesn’t freeze well, and fresh fruit tends to spoil quickly.
uh…encourage smaller logistical networks designed to deliver food when it is at its best, not months afterwards, and encourage people to buy smaller amounts more frequently of fresh, correctly ripened food produced within 250 km of where they live.
GE? The above method is better and means you don’t have to pay royalties for modified food forever to Monsanto.
Minimal food wasted in my house. I grew up in a large Irish Catholic Family – food waste then would have been near 0%. Now I re-cook and/or freeze left overs. And also minimal takeaways – expensive and lazy people’s food as well as being unhealthy.
Goff’s desperate attempt at relevance by taking GST off Fruit and Vegs will make no difference to food waste (and minimal to consumption). Maybe the next Labour policy could be to ban food waste?
Putting unused food into compost is wasting food?
C’mon!
Cooking too much food?
Have left overs for breakfast, lunch the next nights dinner.
You really have been programmed into wealthy eating habits.
If anyone has ever been dumpster diving (which, oddly enough, is illegal, though that’s an entirely different can of worms) then that 27% figure would seem a severe understatement.
Waste on that scale ought to be punished severely. I’ve known people who have spent $50 on groceries all year, and found everything else they’ve needed in dumpsters. Some even ate better than I do.
Colonial Viper has a very good point. There isn’t a shortage of food, the problem is uneven food distribution. And when there are complicating factors like the Common Agricultural Policy and its US equivalent…
How much of the wasted food goes to soup-kitchens? Not a huge amount I’d hazard a guess.
That’s a good analysis. But in my own opinion it isn’t just the consumers alone that are wasting food, the producers as well. Some food products are out in the market that are way beyond the demand of the people. Isn’t that too much waste of energy too?
CV that’s so true
My Ma is like that! 
Monty – that’s great that you don’t waste food
I know some dumpster eaters too.
The food wastage from supermarkets and others, such as bakeries, restaurants, cafes, etc is just criminal and indicative of some very strange practices in our society, especially when a lot of families struggle to put food on the table.
So how can we reduce the amount of food that we waste? For starters we could get the supermarkets to sell vegetables that don’t go off within 3 days of purchase
Deliberately facetious and inflammatory comment:
Typical leftie! Expecting someone else to solve the problem because it’s just too hard to make a change of your own volition.
Productive comment:
Tupperware has a fantastic product line called the ‘Fridge Smart’. We’ve more than tripled the life of fresh vegetables and fruits in our fridge by using them. They’re not cheap to buy, but I think the four (of different sizes) we purchased have paid for themselves in under a year. The lifetime guarantee is pretty sweet, too.
Any fruit that goes to ripe if great for baking or for bottling. I have a large supply of ripe bananas in the freezer than get turned into muffins, cakes etc. Apples often end up stewed or in pies.
As a flat we also always make alot of dinner so that we have leftovers for lunch which we all take for our lunch the following day.
Tupperware and a freezer! I eat leftovers for lunch nearly every day, cheap, nutrious and mostly quite yummy….
@ Sarah – My mum does that
Mmmmmm, bannana cake 
And one thing that never goes off – booze
It kind of does though doesn’t it? I remember being told about some experiment some Year 13s at my school from centuries ago (ok, perhaps I’m exaggerating
) did where they measured how much alcohol was lost from a bottle of wine that was left open. Wouldn’t that be going off?
Althougb I guess an alternative experiment could have been how much the levels of wine in the bottle decreased from one day to the next
I knew it could go off, but meant that compared to the rotting veges of cringe and the fact that it all gets drunk fast in my house that the booze doesn’t go off
Or people who have veges that go off could preserve them in alcohol
Ah, right, gotcha
The easiest way for people to solve this problem is for the people who are able too to grow a lot of their own fresh fruit and veg at home and sell the surplus at local community markets… Which we’ll see a lot of when peak oil kicks in…
You can make booze in your bathtub Spud…
If you weren’t a socialist maybe you could learn to produce something…
No advertising Spud Trevor
Me comment is in spamville – help
WASTE: Absolutely not. If the family can’t eat it or share it, then the chickens can. You work for your money, don’t throw it away.
Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle -in that order.
Aw Trev
!!!!! How else can a dude make a living with no money for ads? 