Understanding how much food we trash, and how to be more thrifty in lean times

BY ASSIA MORTENSEN

One third to one half of all food in America, ready for harvest, never makes it into anyone’s mouth. This shocking statistic was offered by Dr. Timothy Jones, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology. He spent 10 years measuring food losses, under a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Dr. Jones examined practices in farms and orchards, before going onto food production, retail, consumption, and waste disposal.

As part of his study—and how’s this for a great job?—Dr. Jones and his students combed through and analyzed the garbage of 200 American families in Arizona and Delaware to learn how much food gets thrown out each day. The study concluded that an average American household wastes about 14% of their food purchases; 15% of that amount includes products still within their expiration date but never opened. Dr. Jones estimated that a family of four currently trashes the equivalent of about $600 per year, just in meat, fruits, vegetables, and grains alone.

Meanwhile food prices have increased greatly, and so has the need for food due to poverty. Dr. Jones cites USDA statistics indicating that at least 12% of American households are “food insecure” at some point during the year, meaning they simply don't have enough to eat. In 2004, requests for emergency food assistance increased by an average of 14% during the year, according to a 27-city study by the United States Conference of Mayors. According to the same study, 20% of requests for emergency food assistance were never met.

The reasons food is wasted rather than making it into the mouths of the hungry are both varied and complex. Some are quite understandable: Not much can be done about weather and crop deterioration. The apple industry, for instance, loses on average about 12% of its crop on the way to market, according to Dr. Jones’ research. But, with other parts of the puzzle, much of the waste can be prevented. For example convenience store losses are huge (about 26% of their purchases, according to Dr. Jones), and this has much to do with the demand for instant food. It might appear that those hot dogs in the local stop have been there forever, yet eventually about a quarter of these ready-made foods have to be tossed.

As for why American households trash about 14% of the food they buy—comes down to a lack of meal planning; a lack of freezing or otherwise preserving food in time; buying in bulk at places like Costco, but not being able to use all of the food; over-consumption (66% of adult Americans are overweight or obese, according to one 2003-04 government health survey); and unexpected travel, among several other reasons. “Since my partner and I are caring for a sick relative out of town, we have to travel often without much notice,” one close friend told me. “So when we come home and half the food in the fridge has gone off, we just have to deal with it,” he added.

According to Dr. Jones, not only is edible food discarded that could feed people who need it, but the rate of loss, even partially ameliorated, could save U.S. consumers and manufacturers tens of billions of dollars each year.

Americans are thought to be a wasteful society in general, with a throwaway mentality by many environmentally conscious folks, but honestly other industrialized countries may be doing even worse. In England, a 2008 study receiving a great deal of press revealed that the British toss away about a third of the food they purchase. In Sweden, families with small children threw out about a quarter of the food they bought, a recent study there found.

According to Dr. Jones, wasting less food could have a great environmental impact. He estimated that reducing food waste by half could reduce adverse environmental impact by about 25% through less landfill use, soil depletion and applications of fertilizers, and pesticides.

Get Smarter: How to Cut Down on Food Waste

*If you know you won’t eat the food in your refrigerator or pantry, freeze it, or donate it to a food bank.

*Follow grandma’s advice: Learn to make jam out of bulk fruits, and soup out of vegetables and meats.

*Plan meals better: Make a list of all the food you need, and try to resist lots of impulse buys at the grocery store.

*Whenever possible, don’t buy ready-made foods, especially from convenience stores. Reducing the demand for these foods will hopefully help phase them out.

*When you return from shopping, put older foods in front of the new. (For example, put the older container of orange juice in front of the new one.) This way the older items won’t get lost in the back.

*Make more trips to the store, instead of one big one—although with the current price of gas, many people will not find this worthwhile (try to utilize a market within walking distance if possible).

*Support food rescue organizations that pick up unused foods from restaurants and stores.

*Take smaller portions; you can always go back for seconds.

*Make compost out of old food instead of tossing it in the trash.

*A ‘best before’ date really has no implication for food safety, but a ‘use by’ date really does.

*Save leftovers, or get the doggie bag at the restaurant, and take them to work for lunch later.

*Whenever possible, buy food grown and produced locally.
—A.M.