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Food Waste

Food waste refers to food that reaches the consumer but is not eaten. We broaden the treatment of food waste to include food that is eaten but is of little to no nutritional value.

Food Waste

Sources vary considerably on estimates of worldwide levels of food waste. No obvious pattern is visible for food waste by national income level in studies done by the United Nations Environment Programme.

Source: United Nations Environment Programme 1. Household food waste, reported on a per-capita basis, is discarded at the household, as opposed to food service or retail venues. The income brackets are delineated by income per capita thresholds. These measures confirm UNEP's measurements in 2021 2.

The UNEP report further found that food waste is 21 kg/cap/yr at the food service (e.g. restaurant, hotel, etc.) level and 13 kg/cap/yr at the retail level in high-income countries, while reliable estimates of these quantities for other income brackets were unavailable. None of these quantities could be estimated reliably for low-income countries.

However, studies by and van Den Bos Verma et al. 3 and Barrera and Hertel 4, using an energy balance approach, find generally higher levels of food waste in wealthier countries than in poor countries. Cowdard et al. 5 make a similar finding.

Problem:
Food Waste Due to Label Confusion - U.S.
Solution:
Standardized Food Labeling - U.S.
Problem:
Food Waste Due to Inventory Management
Solution:
First Expired First Out Food Inventory Management- U.S.
Problem:
Food Waste
Solution:
Food Outlets Should Make Near-Expired Food Available

Overeating

Overeating, or the consumption of food in excess of recommended intake, is also a form of food waste.

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Absolute impacts are reported by Toti, Di Mattia, and Serafini 6. Overall world agricultural impacts are determined as follows: mass, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions from FAOSTAT 7 and water from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development 8.

Problem:
Food Waste
Solution:
Reduce Restaurant Meal Size

Junk Food

Discretionary food, or junk food, is that which contributes little to a person's dietary needs. They are typically high in saturated fat, sugar, salt, and/or alcohol 9. Junk food contibutes to overeating and obesity because it is low in fiber, pleasing to the taste buds, and offers high fat-, sugar-, and calorie-density 10.

The image: "aus_discretionary.svg" cannot be found!

Source: Hadjikakou 11.

References

  1. Forbes, H., Peacock, E., Abbot, N., Jones, M. "Food Waste Index Report 2024". United Nations Environment Programme. March 2024. ↩

  2. Forbes, H., Quested, T., O'Connor, C. "Food Waste Index Report 2021". United Nations Environment Programme. March 2021. ↩

  3. van den Bos Verma M., de Vreede L., Achterbosch T., Rutten, M.M. "Consumers discard a lot more food than widely believed: Estimates of global food waste using an energy gap approach and affluence elasticity of food waste". PloS one 15(2):e0228369. February 2020. ↩

  4. Barrera, E. L., Hertel. T. "Global food waste across the income spectrum: Implications for food prices, production and resource use". Food Policy 98: 101874. January 2021. ↩

  5. Cowdard, A., Corbin, E., de Koning, J., Tukker, A., Mogollón, J. M. "Global water and energy losses from consumer avoidable food waste". Journal of Cleaner Production 326: 129342. December 2021. ↩

  6. Toti, E., Di Mattia, C., Serafini, M. "Metabolic Food Waste and Ecological Impact of Obesity in FAO World's Region". Frontiers in Nutrition 6, p. 126. 2019. ↩

  7. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. "FAOSTAT". ↩

  8. World Business Council for Sustainable Development. "Facts and trends: water". March 2006. ↩

  9. Australian Bureau of Statistics. "Australian Health Survey: Nutrition First Results - Foods and Nutrients". May 2014. ↩

  10. Magee, E. "Junk-Food Facts". WebMD. Accessed July 3, 2024. ↩

  11. Hadjikakou, M. "Trimming the excess: environmental impacts of discretionary food consumption in Australia". Ecological Economics 131, pp. 119-128. January 2017. ↩