Food Waste

Jennifer Gavidia

Jennifer Richardson

ENG 111/ENF 3

November 6, 2015.

Food Waste

When we talk about food being thrown away we do not talk about bad food, or about food that have exceeded their expiration date. We talk about good, fresh food being wasted on a colossal scale. Unfortunately, there are no good statistics or data concrete to calculate roughly how much food is wasted. According to the European Environment Agency, almost one third of the food produced in the world is spoiled or wasted. In developed countries, consumers are primarily responsible for food waste, while in underdeveloped countries the majority losses occur in production.

  As a country gets richer, it is accumulating more and more surplus in its shops and restaurants. As can be seen most European countries and Americans have between 150 and 200% of the nutritional needs of its population. This means that a country like America has twice food on their shelves of shops and restaurants than actually needed to feed their population, and this is not only included the food that is in shops and restaurants, but also the one used to feed livestock; corn, soybeans, wheat that we could eat but we prefer to leave to fatten animals instead of producing or increasing amounts of meat and dairy. As we see that most rich countries have between three and four times the amount of food that requires its population to feed. Never before had there been such huge surpluses, in many ways this is the success story of human civilization, the agricultural surpluses. However, now we must recognize that we are reaching the ecological limits of what can with stand the planet and when we cut forests, as we do every day to grow more and more food, when we extract water the reserves are exhausted, when they occur fossil fuel emissions in search of more and more food and when we throw so much of this, we think that it is possible to start saving. In the high- and middle-income, food is wasted in large quantities, which means that are discarded when they are still suitable for consumption. In low-income countries, food is lost during early and intermediate stages of the food supply chain and much less food is wasted in consumption. The causes of food waste in low-income countries are related to the economic constraints, the use, storage facilities and marketing systems. The causes of food waste in high- and middle-income are consumer behavior and sales agreements between buyers and farmers, some foods are discarded due to quality standards, rejecting food products that do not have a form or perfect appearance are voided too. Moreover, food losses should be minimized in any country, regardless of their level of economic development. Food losses carry the waste of resources used in production such as land, water, energy and materials. Economically, food losses that can be avoided have a negative impact on earnings, both farmers and consumers. According to a study by the UN (United Nations) more than half of food end up in the trash, most before reaching the plate. Germany has the largest sales area of ​​food, this causes a big competition as the consumer wants the best, and make the standards more stringent food.