by Catherine Haug, June 1, 2011
Dr. Mercola posted an article on his popular health site today about wasted food: 30% of All Food Produced in the World is Wasted (1):
“A full 30 percent of all food produced in the world each year is wasted or lost — about 1.3 billion tons of it. Europeans and North Americans waste between 95 and 115 kilograms of food apiece each year. Those living in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia waste much, much less — between 6 and 11 kilograms per person.
All in all, the developed world wastes 10 times more food than the developing one.”
He goes on to make the point that globally we have enough food to feed everyone on the planet, but we of western civilization have more food than we can consume, while other, less fortunate, peoples don’t have enough food. See my recent post Feeding your Family – Or the World for more on this.
Does this leave you feeling ashamed? Do you toss away food that you have been unable to eat before its ‘best by’ date? When you toss it, does it go out with the garbage? Or do you compost it?
Read on for some suggestions on reducing food waste. And share any of your ideas on avoiding wasted food by using the comment section to this post. (more…)
