Food Waste

    Food waste has proven to be a prevalent issue in the U.S., with the United States Environmental Protection Agency estimating that 66 million tons of food was wasted in 2019. Wasting food of this quantity is harmful to the environment in a couple ways. One is that the food being thrown away is adding to landfills and contributing to the increasing methane emissions. While millions of tons of food is being wasted yearly in the United States, 13.5 million households were considered food insecure in 2021. When a person or family has food insecurity, it means that they do not know when their next meal will be and rarely have enough food to keep themselves satisfied. Due to the rising population and high number of food-insecure households, the demand for food is increasing, which causes an overuse of cropland, which is also harmful to the environment.

Ways you can reduce food waste at home:

- Plan meals in advance and only buy what you need

- Try to use food that you already have before going back to the store

- Pay attention to expiration dates and try to avoid letting food go bad (especially produce). 

Source: https://www.eatrightpro.org/news-center/practice-trends/the-state-of-food-loss-and-waste-and-ways-to-fix-it