Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Wasting Food

Hey guys, I have an environmental post today!

You probably recycle, reuse bags, carpool, use energy efficient appliances and try to take the bus.  One of the best ways of helping is to stop wasting food!
ll you need to do is minimize your food waste. If you buy it and bring it home, eat it. That alone is one of the easiest ways to aid the environment.
About 40% of the food produced in the United States isn't consumed. Every day Americans waste enough food to fill the Rose Bowl. And our national food waste habit is on the upswing: We waste 50% more food today than we did in 1974.
Squandering so much of what we grow doesn't just waste food; it also wastes the fossil fuel that went into growing, processing, transporting and refrigerating it. A recent study estimated conservatively that 2% of all U.S. energy consumption went to producing food that was never eaten. To give you a sense of perspective, every year, through uneaten food, we waste 70 times the amount of oil that gushed into the Gulf of Mexico during the three months of the Deepwater Horizon spill.
That waste of resources continues after we throw away food. There is the energy required to haul the discarded food to the landfill. And once there, food decomposes and creates methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent a heat trapper than carbon dioxide. Landfills are the second-largest human-related source of methane emissions, and rotting food causes the majority of methane there. It's climate change coming directly from your kitchen.
Not only will cutting your food waste help the planet, but it also will make you a slightly more ethical person. The number of hungry people, in Los Angeles and the state, is steadily increasing. From 2005 to 2009, the amount of Los Angeles County residents receiving food assistance swelled by 46%. Meanwhile, Angelenos throw away about 18 million pounds of food every day. At supermarkets, restaurants and, of course, our homes, we're discarding a potential solution for our neighbors' needs.
With those stats, we might want to rethink about wasting food.

8 comments:

  1. Eat what is served and if you cant eat it, wrap it up!

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  2. I always end out wasting food since I live alone and am too lazy to put the leftovers in the freezer. I once had no money to buy some food and realized how much I would had loved that food...

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  3. I really rare waste food...instead of wasting...I eat the food that my brothers are wasting :P I'm always hungry

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  4. That's why I only buy delicious food like pizza, hamburgers, hot-dogs and Coco Puffs, lol. Nah, I'm just joking. Those are interesting facts, PEOPLE‼ be conscious "Por el amor de Dios..."!

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  5. its so sad because everyone waste food all the time. like their isnt starving people out there that would love that for tonights meal.

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  6. True. i never waste food btw :P

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