Food wastage is a big problem in the modern world, leading to the drainage of resources, money, and air.There are more than seven billion humans on this planet, yet more than 920 million of them are starving. Added to this, more than 1.8 billion tonnes of food goes to waste, about a third of the food we produce.Food waste is not only limited to developed countries but is also coming from developing countries. You might be surprised to know that if all the food waste of the planet was combined and made into a country, it would come out as the third-largest greenhouse-gas producing country, surpassing both developed and developing countries, such as the USA, China, and India. If we stopped food waste altogether, we would eliminate 8% of our total greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and nitrate.Food is even wasted by consumers at times just because the fruit or vegetables look too ‘ugly’, and they do not want to eat it.Continue reading to find out more food-waste facts.What is food wastage?Wasted food comes under mainly two categories: food loss, and food waste.Food loss is a broader term that refers to any edible food that becomes leftover food at any point. Food loss includes crops left in the field, food that spoils during transit, and any other food that does not make it to a store, in addition to leftover food in households and businesses. Unfortunately, at every stage of the food manufacturing process, some food is lost.Food waste, on the other hand, refers to food that is wasted by shops due to color or appearance, as well as plate waste by customers. This includes vegetables, fruit, and other kinds of food items.Reasons Behind Food WastageThere are many reasons why food is wasted. One of the leading causes of food waste in the developed world is through a lack of proper planning by consumers and purchasers of these foods. People frequently purchase large quantities of food items, such as vegetables, without properly planning when and how the food will be prepared and eaten.People tend to modify their meal-preparation plans or forget to use these food items on time as a result of today’s complicated work schedule and timings. It is sometimes beyond most people’s control, resulting in food waste and food loss, and then these foods are thrown away. People also end up eating poorly prepared meals that do not taste how they expected them to be. This is a type of food loss and food waste that is seen at consumer levels.Foods that are being prepared for consumers in the supply chain might get damaged during their supply from food-production lines. Transporting food items is difficult, despite advances in refrigerated trucks which have advanced technologies.Someone may make a mistake with the temperature settings of their containers. The food could melt, rot, or get freezer burn as a result of this, or fruit may become damaged if it collides on a very rocky route. All of this leads to food waste and food loss from the food-supply chain.Even the weather may have a significant impact on the success of a food-carrying shipment supply chain and it can lead to food being wasted if it does not match quality standards.The absence of infrastructure and other storage mechanisms for food commodities, such as vegetables, grain, meat, and fruit, is a major contributor to food waste in developing countries and regions of the planet such as India, and Latin America.Lack of adequate management, limited funds, and technological challenges in harvesting methods are among the major contributors to food waste in these countries.During bad weather and environmental challenges, developing nations also have problems with storage, cooling, processing, packaging, infrastructure, and marketing systems which are critical when their food directly comes from food-supply chains.While developing countries are more prone to food loss and food waste because of inadequate infrastructure and harvesting techniques, they can also go through the problem of food loss and food waste because of business practises and other kinds of social norms followed in these types of countries.Another major contributor to food waste are food safety protocols, which have been adopted by different countries in order to make food fit for human consumption. Food-safety regulations provide no tolerance for industrial-processing errors or any other compromises that degrade the quality of the final food items.As a result of the ambiguities and errors that occur during industrial food processing and in food-supply chains, all food products that do not satisfy the stipulated requirements are thrown away, which leads to food waste and food loss.Food-processing enterprises must adhere to stringent food-safety rules and, as a result, have no error margins when it comes to food production.Companies in the industry waste food to comply with food safety rules, as every tiny inaccuracy means the food will be rejected, even if it is only due to an imperfection in the look or shape of the food.Overcooking, manufacturing trials, packing errors, trial runs, and incorrect sizes and weights are just a few of the factors that lead to food waste and food loss.Food waste is common at retail malls, wholesale markets, and supermarkets due to the merchandising of food items.In order to increase sales and customer satisfaction, food-service operations are typically more focused on over-merchandising food items and products in grocery stores and supermarkets by employing beautiful and appealing displays to create the illusion of an abundance of food.The link between over-merchandising and excessive food waste is often neglected. When individuals buy more than they need, the extra usually ends up in the garbage which ultimately leads to food waste and food loss. Overordering also means that food products with a short shelf life will expire since part of it will go unsold. The worst part is that this over-merchandising food could have been given to those in need of food.How do you reduce food wastage?Food wastage can be prevented in many ways, and it is very important to reduce food wastage in order to save our environment.Many steps which can be taken by us to reduce food wastage are:Smart Shopping: In order to limit food loss and food waste while shopping, meals should be planned, grocery lists should be used, and impulsive purchases should be avoided. This means you will be less inclined to buy the stuff you do not require and are unlikely to consume, resulting in less food waste being produced overall. Purchase products only if you intend to utilize them, and wait until perishables are depleted before purchasing more of them.Storage Of Food: If food items, such as vegetables, fruit, grain, and meats, are not stored properly, they can end up as food waste. Many consumers don’t know how to store fruit and vegetables properly, which can result in early ripening and, finally, rotting products. This is one of the major causes of food loss and food waste. Potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, cucumbers, and onions, for example, should never be refrigerated. It’s best to keep these foods at room temperature in order to prevent food wastage.Another effective technique to reduce food waste and food loss is to separate foods that create more ethylene gas from those foods which do not produce ethylene gas. Ethylene accelerates the ripening of foods, which can lead to deterioration much earlier than the expected longevity of the food item. This leads to certain vegetables, fruit, and meat items being wasted.Expiration Dates: It is very important to understand expiration dates before purchasing food items in order to avoid both food waste and food loss. The terms ‘best before’ and ‘use-by’ are not interchangeable, there is a big difference in them when it comes to food items.Food can sometimes be consumed after the best-before date, but the use-by date indicates when it is no longer safe to consume. It is very important to understand the labeling of these food items, to prevent waste but also illness.Leftovers: To reduce food loss and food waste at your home, you should consume your leftover food items in order to reduce wastage. Consumers can refrigerate or freeze their food items and use them at a later date.Eating Skins of Foods: Many people dump the skins of vegetables, fruit, and other food items which end up as wasted food. People do not realize that these skins of vegetables and fruit have a lot of nutrients in them. Fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants are abundant in apple peel. Vitamin A, B vitamins, protein, and good fats are among the nutrients found in chicken skin.The skin of such food items is perfectly fine to be eaten, and they can be a good source of nutrients for human consumption. If these skins of foods are eaten instead of being thrown, less food will be wasted.Compost: If you have leftover food in your home which cannot be eaten due to some other reasons, they can be turned into compost. Composting leftover food is a great technique to recycle food waste by converting them into plant energy, which is critical for the survival of plants.A big garden may benefit from an outdoor composter, but city people with houseplants or tiny herb gardens would benefit from a countertop composter. This is a great way to prevent food waste and food loss.Donating Food: There can be cans and packs of food items in your home which you do not plan on using. These can end up as food waste if not used. In order to prevent food waste, it is better to donate these food items to those people who are in desperate need of food to survive. Due to poverty, these people experience severe malnutrition. Helping them with food is a good thing to do and you will be saving the environment from greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, as well by reducing food waste.Eating Local & Seasonal Foods: Consumption of foods, such as a fruit or vegetable which is seasonal, can help you reduce food waste. Fresh food has a longer shelf life, which can help to cut down on food waste. The farm-to-fork method, which prioritizes local and seasonal vegetables over packaged goods, offers multiple other advantages when consumed.Seasonal food has a better flavor and is less expensive, and local produce has a longer shelf life, and minimizes the emission of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, as it takes less distance for food to travel to consumers, and supports local farmers and communities.Giving to animals: If you have food on your table which you know would be thrown away as food waste, it would be better to feed them to animals around you. Taking the effort to feed these hungry creatures is preferable to just dumping them into your garbage bin, which would create many different kinds of issues. In addition, many farmers are happy to take wasted food as feed for their farm animals. A small act of compassion by humans can make a big difference in the lives of other living creatures.However, always check before feeding leftover food to your pets as some foods can be toxic to them, such as grapes.Serving Sizes: One of the biggest reasons for food wastage is people taking more than they can consume on to their plates. The food which is left goes as food waste. Keeping your portion sizes within a healthy range not only helps reduce food waste but also helps to keep your weight in check.It is very important to remember before throwing leftover food from your plate into your garbage bin that food waste is one of the many reasons behind issues of greenhouse gas and climate change. Food waste can be reduced by making serving sizes that are appropriate for your stomach; you need to realize how much you can consume.Use Of Broth, Stocks, Pickles, and Jams: Food waste from your table can be turned into stocks and broth. Vegetable broth can be made by boiling surplus veggies, peelings, and other scraping food waste from your table. A delectable chicken broth may be made by boiling a chicken carcass and other leftovers, such as the bones and skin of the animal. The best way to keep homemade broth is to keep it refrigerated and utilize it within a few days of making it. Freezing it, on the other hand, will give it a far longer life span and you can use it for a very long time.Foods like cucumber, which goes off very fast because of its high water content, can instead be turned into pickles if stored in a jar of vinegar. This has a very long shelf life. And fruit can be cut up and cooked to make jam, which also can keep for a year. Even the seeds can be made into pectin, which is a natural thickener.Fascinating Food Wastage FactsHere are some of the most interesting food-wastage facts:In the United States of America, food that is worth more than $48 billion, and makes up 30% of the total food supply, is thrown away. Since agriculture is the greatest human use of water, it is estimated that nearly half of the water required to create this food is also wasted. This water could have been used to produce energy or even used at agricultural fields for the production of other things.The amount of food that is wasted in Latin America could feed millions of severely malnourished children across the world by ensuring better food security.If we go by statistics, China is responsible for wasting more than 50 million tonnes of grain annually. In developing countries of the Asian region, 40% of the food loss occurs at the food-production stage. Climate change is also responsible for ruining farm fields and other production areas of food.In developed countries, food waste and loss mainly occur at the food-supply stage due to a lack of co-ordination between the parties involved.The wasted food would be enough to feed 870 million people throughout the world if more than 20% of the food which is currently wasted was to be saved.In the coming years, the world’s population could surpass more than nine billion people. To fulfill this demand for food, production must grow by more than 60% - 70% and the food waste also needs to be stopped.Farmers lose money when food waste happens, and consumers pay more for it, so there are economy-based interests as well to stop food waste.Large volumes of food are thrown away at the retail level due to a major focus given on the beauty of the food item which is being consumed. You might be surprised to know but half of all produce is thrown away in the United States because it is regarded as too “ugly” to consume. This results in more than 60 million tons of food being discarded. Again, all of the resources being used to make this wasted food could have been used to produce energy and other things for the betterment of the world.Also, in the coming years, the UK Government is planning to introduce annual reporting of food waste and surplus. This initiative is taken by the government to reduce food waste, which has a major impact on climate change.Food waste has a global influence on biodiversity loss. Farmers have progressively entered wild regions in the quest for more fertile grounds in order to optimize agricultural production, resulting in biodiversity loss of the entire world. Deforestation and the conversion of wild regions into farmlands have all damaged natural habitats for birds, fish, and other kinds of animals.There are many different agricultural practices that have exacerbated biodiversity loss. The widespread breeding of cattle for human consumption, as well as the use of pesticides in agricultural production, pollution in streams, rivers, and coastal waterways, impact marine animals.
Food wastage is a big problem in the modern world, leading to the drainage of resources, money, and air.
