Food Waste Prevention Week April 8-14

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 Food Waste Prevention Week April 8-14th, 2024


    Food waste can occur for many varied reasons such as: spoilage, problems during drying, milling, transporting, or processing that expose food to damage by insects, rodents, birds, molds, and bacteria, over-ordering food, and consumers buying and cooking more than they need which results in throwing out foods. Food waste is the edible amount of food post harvest available for consumption but not consumed for any reason. In the United States, food waste is estimated to be 30-40% of the food supply. Around 31% of food loss is due to retail and consumers and in 2010 there was approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food waste. Food waste has an impact on society as wholesome food that can be helped to feed families in need is sent to landfills and land, water, labor, energy, and other inputs are used in producing, processing, transporting, preparing, storing, and disposing of discarded food. Some ways to reduce food waste are by improving product development, storage, shopping/ordering, marketing, labeling, and cooking methods. If excess food is unavoidable, you can donate it to hunger-relief organizations which can help feed people in need. If you have inedible food, you can recycle it into animal feed, compost, bioenergy, etc. If you are on campus some ways to help with food waste are starting with smaller portions, if you are unsure about an item take a small sample of if before wasting it, share extra food with others, take leftovers back to the dorm with you and put the date on them so you can eat and reuse the food. 

 



Source: https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs 

 

~MP 

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