It’s no secret that food waste is a global problem of epic proportions. Approximately one-third of all food is either lost or wasted, while more than 800 million people worldwide go hungry.
In the United States, up to 40% of food goes uneaten, while 15.3 million children live with food insecurity, according to government statistics.
In light of this monumental challenge, The Huffington Post recently launched campaign to highlight the scale of the food waste problem and to find ways to reduce it.
Around the world, governments and institutions have implemented strategies to reduce food waste. For instance, France forced supermarkets to donate all unsold food by making it illegal to throw it away. In the U.K., large grocery chain Tesco is selling “ugly” produce under a program called “Perfectly Imperfect,” and plans to donate all unsold food to charity.
The United State lags far behind. The ‘Reclaim’ campaign from the Huffington Post seeks to pressure retail giant Walmart to follow Europe’s lead by starting to sell imperfect produce. The fact that perfectly nutritious food is discarded because it’s not the right shape or size is absurd. And this produce could be more than 30% cheaper. You can sign a petition in support of this at change.org.
The HuffPost campaign also wants to end the confusion over food date labeling, none of which effectively indicate whether food is still good to eat. Congress is working on creating uniform national standards for labels on perishable foods to help curb the amount of food waste.
And finally, the campaign seeks to encourage us to all do our part. Planning our meals and creating shopping lists helps. Click here for more tips and tricks to reduce food waste.
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Web Links
Pass the Food Recovery Act to Fight Food Waste and Hunger!
We Waste So Much Food That Congress Might Actually Do Something
Photo, posted November 6, 2013, courtesy of Nic McPhee via Flickr.
‘Reducing Food Waste’ from Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.