The average American family throws away 1,600 dollars in food per year.
Last November, I moved to Ottawa, Canada, after many years of living in several European Union countries. The first months in a new country are always full of surprises when you meet new people and discover the local culture. But this time, it was different; Ontario went from the one pandemic lockdown into the next, and hardly any social contact was possible. It makes my weekly masked visit to the local supermarket a much bigger highlight in my social life than it should be. It was there that I noted one of the surprises in cultural differences: the often unreadable use-by dates on the food products.
During my first few visits, I sometimes asked personnel in the store to find the use-by date, and if they managed to do so, explain to me how to read it. I remember one friendly guy who explained how to read a complicated code backward, and I had to forget about the first few letters and numbers. Others went to the back of the store and came back after a few minutes with the answer. I soon gave up.
In Europe, I don’t recall ever asking anyone to find the use-by date on a food product. A recent study of more than 2000 food products in more than 100 retail stores in eight EU countries concluded the same; almost 96% of products carried either a “best before” or “use by” date mark.
Why is this relevant? Because too much food is thrown away in households. Even in the EU, with our easy-to-read date stamps, the same survey estimates that up to 10% of the 88 million tonnes of food waste generated annually in the EU are linked to date marking. The 11 percent of products with poor legibility of the date mark explain a small part of that. But the main reason seems to be consumer confusion about the meaning of these dates and the accompanying wording. There is a different warning related to the product’s safety (“use by”) or the quality (“best before”). The European Commission is now working on possible options to simplify date marking on food and promote a better understanding of the information provided.
Where food fills the landfills
Crossing the Atlantic again, and now looking at the United States, we see stunning food waste numbers. According to a recent estimate, Americans waste 160 billion dollars per year on food, 30-40 percent of the US food supply. Food is the single most significant component taking up space inside American landfills.
In 2010, an estimated 141 trillion calories per year in the food supply, or 1,249 calories per capita per day, went uneaten. That gets close to the 1,600 to 3,000 calories an American adult needs to maintain weight, depending on factors like gender, age, or activity level.
It is hard to understand these numbers considering that, according to a recent estimate, more than 42 million people in the US may experience food insecurity, including a potential 13 million children. I wrote about inequality before; it is one of the themes that I will regularly discuss in The Planet. One more thought on food waste and inequality: the average American family throws away 1,600 dollars in food per year; meanwhile, Washington debated the stimulus check of 1,400 dollars.
I find these numbers stunning and look at my behavior. I can’t say that I never throw any food away, but it is sporadic. I am critical of how much plastic I throw away, but it’s hardly ever food. I buy what I need and only go shopping when the fridge is close to empty. In Canada and before in the US, I needed to get used to the large portions of food per package. In practice, that means less variety for me. I want to avoid throwing food away and therefore use the same ingredients for several days. I realize that one advantage of not finding or understanding the use-by dates means that I judge what I see and smell, which probably extends the official best-before dates a bit.
The last thought before I stop for tonight; part of the food waste is meat. I find it hard to express the sadness that I feel for an animal that has been abused all its short life in the meat industry, whose wasted life then ends as food waste. Throwing away meat is the ultimate disrespect for those animals. The least you can do is think twice before you buy meat and consider if you will eat it. I am not asking you to become a vegetarian, but I invite you to think twice when you walk into the fish and meat section if you will eat those animals. Which reminds me: you can keep those modern plant-based meat alternatives for a very long time in your fridge; I have never thrown anything of it away.
Animals and meat-eating are two more themes for The Planet because we ruin the planet by eating habits. Stay tuned; there is so much more to say about this.
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A photo
Spring is everywhere in Ottawa. New leaves are now visible in these trees.
Notes:
Earth.com uses an even higher estimate of food waste by American families: 2,000 dollars per year. https://www.earth.com/news/family-wastes-food/
Bravo Alexander, a great topic. And yes, fresh foods are bundled in such away that one buys to much or can be used in time, before it spoils. If the price per pound is listed you can take the Broccoli head bundle apart and take a couple of stalks. Ask the manager to re-weigh the amount of Broccoli you're buying, and put a new price label on it. It can be done with other produce products also, like a Celery bundle. If I need a couple of Celery leafstalks I pull two from bundle and buy only those two leafstalks. It is a bit of a hustle with getting the manager(or other staff) involved but it is a legal procedure. People are often trapped with bundling tactics, we buy more than we need out of politeness even when we are strapped (short on funds).
I absolutely hate wasting food. It's so wrong being that there's so many hungry people in the world. With that said I wish I could say I never throw food away, but I do sometimes. As you stated sometimes you have to buy things in large portions. That's very hard when you live by yourself as I do. I typically don't waste a lot of food but I'm bad with milk. Just today I threw away about a third of a gallon of milk. And I have an entire half gallon of almond milk that needs to be tossed. That was my fault I bought it intending to make smoothies and never did.