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DCL
We've discussed the environmental perils of food waste before, but here's an interesting twist: all that waste means more energy is lost in the form of food than is stored in all of the nation's offshore oil and gas reserves.
New Scientist reports on this interesting calculation:
Recent estimates suggest that 16 per cent of the energy consumed in the US is used to produce food. Yet at least 25 per cent of food is wasted each year. Michael Webber and Amanda Cuellar at the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas at Austin calculate that this is the equivalent of about 2150 trillion kilojoules lost each year.
That is not only more than exists in offshore reserves, the story continues, it's also more than the projected energy potential from ethanol biofuel.
The food groups that get wasted the most? Dairy foods and vegetables—although the calculations did not take into account waste on farms and from fishing, which we know is often quite wasteful. (They're also based on USDA statistics from 1995, and it's fair to assume that food waste has increased in the last 15 years.)
It seems like an environmental crime to waste so much food—it's also poor financial planning. The average American family is estimated to throw out $600 worth of food a year.
Makes you want to never waste food again.
