Travis 1

Melah Travis
English 113-05
4 April 2015
Professor Werner
The Forgotten Food
Sundays often serve as a day when many Americans go through their kitchen cabinets
and refrigerators and search for food items they may need more of, or throw out old products
expired dairy, leftovers, fruits and vegetables, condiments, meats and fish, unused canned
products, etc.although many of these items are still edible. This refrigerator raiding process is
familiar because it is one of the routines that many Americans grew up on; however, this process
is not beneficial to America, as its citizens continue to waste these products. Food waste
comprises a significant portion of the collective flow of waste material from domestic and
industrial areas, through to final disposition produced in America, contributing to ecological and
economical losses if the problem remains at a stand still.
America is a very fast-paced country, as well as a populated one, meaning that the
increase in population raises a high demand for food. Yet there are some Americans that buy
more food than they need or are too busy and rushed to finish their food. Nevertheless, the waste
issue is not solely based on the consumers; restaurants and grocery stores play a huge role in
contributing to the countrys waste, resulting in the nations current state. On average,
consumers throw away about 40 percent of the food produced in the country, and restaurants and
stores are estimated to throw away more than 6000 tons of food each year. That breaks down to
about 20 pounds of food per person each month if all of the waste was divided equally
throughout the nations citizens (Wasted). Overall, 27,240 tons (roughly 35 million pounds) of

Travis 2
solid waste and an estimated 8.8 billion kilocalories are lost annually in America due to food
waste (Griffen, Sobal, and Lyson). This information proves that America is throwing out billions
of dollars in food waste alone each year. Perhaps the most common food items contributing to
this annual debt are produce, grains, meat/fish, and dairy. To encompass a visual, Figure 1 was
created with the help of the information provided by The Natural Resources Defense Center

(Wasted).
In the film Dive! Living off Americas Waste, director, Jeremy Seifert, analyzed how
American grocery stores have been filling up their dumpsters with many edible food items and
proved it by living off of scavenged food for a year. Seifert contradicts himself here. On one
hand, he argues how great dumpster diving can be financially. On the other hand, he also says

Travis 3
the amount of wasted food is too immense. By focusing on the large amount of food found in his
local dumpsters and how his family is able to survive solely off the foraged foods, Seifert
sometimes overlooks the deeper problem of food waste in the United States. Need a visual?
Americans could fill the Rose Bowl with a days worth of food waste (Nelson and Zeratsky).
Companies throw away items before the sell-by dates, when packages are opened, or if a can has
been dented. But it has been proven by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
that sell by and use by dates are not federally regulated and do no indicate safety; therefore,
there should be no excuse as to why supermarkets are over $15 billion in debt annually just from
fruit and vegetable food waste alone (Wasted).
Food waste contributes to any countrys economical state. It is not just the food that is
being wasted, but it is also the work that went into preparing and/or growing it. Throwing away
food wastes the time, energy, and resourcesboth money and oilused to produce and purchase
that food. Progressively, greater and greater amounts of fossil fuels are used to fertilize, apply
pesticides to, harvest, and to process the food. To be specific, The food industry burns nearly a
fifth of all the petroleum consumed in the United Statesit takes more than one calorie of fossilfuel energy to yield one calorie of food (Pollan 332). More and more gas is spent transporting
food from farms to processors, wholesalers to restaurants, stores to households, and finally, to the
landfills.
Pollan is surely right about the amount of energy and labor that goes into producing food
each day. For example, a single strawberry has about four calories. On average, the distance
that the strawberry would travel is about 3,581 miles before finding its way onto a consumers
plate (Pollan 333). According to my calculations, the transporting of that strawberry from the
western most point of the United States to a plate on the opposite, most eastern point of the

Travis 4
country would require about 1.017E10 Joules of energy. This contributes to the already immense
portion of methane and petroleum formulated in such an industrialized nation. Given all the
resources demanded for food production, it is worthwhile to make sure that food goes to good
use and the least amount possible is lost along its journey to the plate.
Being aware of wastefulness is a responsibility to the owners and corporations of
restaurants and stores throughout the country as they continuously discard food items, but more
importantly, it is a responsibility to the consumers as they are where the majority of the waste is
generated. It is understood that people may not pay attention to their food waste, particularly at
home, because it goes straight into the garbage can or the disposal. Seifert mentions, The
USDA estimated in 1996 that recovering just 5 percent of the food being thrown away at home
could feed four million people a day; recovering 25 percent would feed 20 million people.
Sadly, today America recovers less than 2.5 percent (Dive!). As a country, every other piece of
food that crosses a consumers path is essentially tossed out. This disposal of food can be due to
many factors such as, families preparing larger meals than necessary, resulting in leftovers that
often, if not the majority of the time, go uneaten, consequently resulting in a shocking cost of
about $1,365 to $2,275 dished out annually for a family of four (Dive!). If Nelson and Zeratsky
are right that Americans could fill the Rose Bowl stadium, a 90,000 seat arena, with a days worth
of food waste as I think they are, then it is vital to reassess the popular assumption that throwing
away food and making it vanish is not the proper method of getting rid of unwanted or spoiled
food. Conservation of food by families, stores, industries and restaurants would lighten the
burden of landfills, where food makes up the largest component of solid waste, feeding the
landfills as much as the country feeds itself, if not more (Dive!).

Travis 5
Now that the terrible facts about food waste are out, many Americans may wonder how
they can individually do something to stop it. A little extra consideration of the food that is being
wasted may help the dilemma that the country has. I agree that there are more effective ways of
tossing out unwanted food, a point that needs emphasizing since so many people still believe in
the phrase reduce, reuse, recycle. For example, consumers should learn to plan their meals ahead
of time to reduce the frantic purchasing of excess amounts of foods. Also conservation
techniques such as composting or more specifically known as recycling would be beneficial to
America, though they may be time consuming and even costly. Nelson and Zeratskys theory of
composting or creating shorter grocery lists is extremely useful because it sheds light on the
difficult problem of food waste in America and its economical impact (Nelson and Zeratsky).
What comes at a higher price, however, is wasting resources such as food by sending it to the
already crowded landfills. As this is happening, citizens are squandering the time, money, and
effort that went into producing said items of food. Though I concede that recycling is always the
better choice, I still insist that buying more food than necessary and continually wrongly
discarding the food is the greater issue. The accumulation of waste due to improper disposal is a
major problem in the United States and has an adverse affect on the environment if the
population continues to remain idle.
Food waste encompasses a great portion of the collective flow of waste material
produced in America, contributing to ecological and economical losses if the problem remains at
a stand still. Food waste is a serious issue that leads to higher rates of food anxiety, especially
among families, that causes atmospheric pollution, and results in millions of dollars wasted on
contributions. To combat this issue, producers and consumers should be encouraged to donate
excess food, utilize biodegradable supplies, and recycle. Due to the growing pressures towards

Travis 6
food waste, the above practices should become more and more familiar and the trends should be
expected to accelerate in the near future. A continuing rise in the rate of food waste is no longer
acceptable. It is essential that consumers and corporations come face to face with this issue and
use what is known about reduction, recycling, reusing, and especially conservation to eliminate
the abundance of food waste (1510 words).

Works Cited
Dive! The Film-Living Off America's Waste. Director. Jeremy Seifert. 2010. DVD.
Griffen, Mary, Jeffery Sobal, and Thomas Lyson. "An Analysis of a Community Food Waste
Stream." Journal of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society. 26.1-2 (2009): 6781. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.
Nelson, Jennifer, and Katherine Zeratsky. "What You Can Do to Reduce Food Waste."Mayo
Clinic. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. (2012). Web. 26 Feb.
2015.
Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York:
Penguin Group, 2006. Print.
"Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to
Landfill." NRDC. Natural Resources Defense Council. (2012).Web. 2 Mar. 2015.