Everyone on the planet needs food to live. But I’ve got some rather startling stats that won’t make your mouth water, but your eyes instead!
Five things you need to know:
- The world currently produces enough food to feed way more than it’s population of 7.7 billion. But can you guess which country in 2020 had 27.5 million households finding it hard to afford or get food? To top that, studies suggest the U.S. wastes hundreds of billions of pounds of food worth hundreds of billions of dollars every year by just throwing it away. So how do we stop this massive waste?
- Nearly 40% of it comes from our homes. We buy it from the supermarket because we all aspire to cook. There are good deals, so we buy more food than we need.
- Our refrigerators are rather big, so it’s hard to keep track of what’s going out of date. Perishables can go off fast if they’re not stored right. So, into the trash it goes! And it’s this stuff that festers in landfill with regular trash and creates methane, which is 30 times worse for our climate.
- The solution? Economists suggest we buy less and only what we’re going to use by making a list or buy local produce, as it may be fresher and last longer. Keeping a list of what you’ve got inside your refrigerator and freezer helps. Put newer items below the older ones, and cook the things that are coming up to timing out.
- And instead of chucking out vegetables that are starting to look less lively, you could bung it in a soup or freeze elderly fruit and blend it into a smoothie. And last of all, compost what remains, instead of trashing it.
Each year, economists say we spend around $1,300 per year on food that we don’t eat. So why not save that cash instead of letting mother earth get indigestion by trying to eat it!