Palm | Kelapa Sawit

    Many Americans remember their mothers advice"finish the food on your plate" but few are listening. According toJonathan Bloom, author of American Wasteland: How America Throws Away NearlyHalf of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It), we are throwing away 40% ofthe food we buy. There are many contributing factors to why we waste so much.Bloom suggests that it has to do with the low cost of food in the UnitedStates. Food accounts for 6.9% of the average household income in America; oneof the lowest averages worldwide. According to Bloom “That cheapness has a realimpact—we don’t tend to value that which is inexpensive. And by most anydefinition, something that’s 7 percent of our budget is cheap. And eachindividual item is only a fraction of that percentage, providing littleeconomic incentive not to waste.”

    We waste food in two ways. The first and biggest culprit to foodwaste does not occur on the plate but in the refrigerator. Due to theprevalence of major grocery chains selling food laced with preservatives,Americans have lost touch with the way most of the world still shops. While afamily may go shopping on a daily basis in India to buy fresh food, Americanshave chosen convenience over freshness. An unintended consequence is waste. As mostAmericans buy food less often we tend to stockpile for weeks to come and muchof the food spoils. The other culprit is waste on the plate, our eyes aresimply too big for our stomachs.



    While the fact that we are wasting so much food while othersare starving is alone a strong motivation to change our eating habits, theproblem is even bigger than that. To grasp the bigger picture think of how manyresources are used from food production to delivery. Between fertilizers, foodprocessing, packing and transportation, there is a lot more being wasted thanjust the food. A recent study at the University of Texas announced thatAmerican food waste equals the energy equivalent of 350 million barrels of oilper year.

    Perhaps the worst environmental consequence of our food waste isusually not considered. When our food ends up in a landfill it does notbiodegrade. Instead, due to lack of oxygen in landfills, the food producesmethane, a greenhouse gas 23 times stronger than carbon dioxide.



    You may be asking, so what can I do about this? Well, the answer issimple. Waste less food! Make smaller and more frequent trips to the grocerystore and make sure you don't cook more than you'll eat. That being said, thereis a way to deal with left-overs that prevents them from contributing topollution. You can make a compost pile for your food to naturally biodegrade. Bestof all the compost will provide you with great fertilizer! For instructions onmaking your own compost pile please use the following links:
http://www.composting101.com/
http://extension.missouri.edu/p/G6957
http://eartheasy.com/grow_compost.html


Article sources:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=earth-talk-waste-land
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/weekinreview/18martin.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.wastedfood.com/
http://www.grist.org/sustainable-food/2011-03-20-ask-umbra-on-food-waste-and-what-to-do-about-it
Image sources:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=earth-talk-waste-land
http://www.endhunger.org/food_waste.htm
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/soil/msg051839021184.html