Food! We all need it to nourish our bodies. But then again to put it bluntly, we waste a hell of a lot of it.....
"Americans say they feel bad about the 130 billion pounds of food (PDF) the nation wastes every year. But not badly enough to do anything about it.
More than half the respondents in a new national survey said they are aware of the scale of this $160 billion (PDF) problem. Almost 80 percent said they feel guilty when throwing food away, but 51 percent said it would be difficult to reduce household food waste. And 42 percent said they don’t have enough time to worry about it.
The study, published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE, found that responses from wealthier Americans showed them less willing to be inconvenienced, said Dana Gunders, a food-waste expert at the National Resources Defense Council who wrote the first major report about food waste in 2012. Gunders wasn't involved with the study released on Thursday.
“I’ve always thought it’s a bit of a luxury to waste food,” she said.
It gets worse. The fact that less than 60 percent even understood that wasting food is bad for the environment shows a troubling gap in awareness, said Brian Roe, a co-author of the study and a professor of agricultural marketing and policy at Ohio State University, which funded the study. In particular, many aren't aware that food that ends up in landfills contributes to the release of methane, a major contributor to global warming. Not to mention all the fuel and fertilizer expended in food production that could be saved if we just ate everything on our plate.
"Americans say they feel bad about the 130 billion pounds of food (PDF) the nation wastes every year. But not badly enough to do anything about it.
More than half the respondents in a new national survey said they are aware of the scale of this $160 billion (PDF) problem. Almost 80 percent said they feel guilty when throwing food away, but 51 percent said it would be difficult to reduce household food waste. And 42 percent said they don’t have enough time to worry about it.
The study, published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE, found that responses from wealthier Americans showed them less willing to be inconvenienced, said Dana Gunders, a food-waste expert at the National Resources Defense Council who wrote the first major report about food waste in 2012. Gunders wasn't involved with the study released on Thursday.
“I’ve always thought it’s a bit of a luxury to waste food,” she said.
It gets worse. The fact that less than 60 percent even understood that wasting food is bad for the environment shows a troubling gap in awareness, said Brian Roe, a co-author of the study and a professor of agricultural marketing and policy at Ohio State University, which funded the study. In particular, many aren't aware that food that ends up in landfills contributes to the release of methane, a major contributor to global warming. Not to mention all the fuel and fertilizer expended in food production that could be saved if we just ate everything on our plate.
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