Food Waste In The U.S. Exacts A Huge Environmental Toll

A new study by university and USDA researchers has found that about 25 percent of all food available to eat in the U.S. – one pound per person, or about 30 percent of available calories – is wasted each day. The environmental costs of such food waste are huge. About 30 million acres of cropland, 4.2 trillion gallons of water, and nearly two billion pounds of fertilizer are used to produce the wasted food. The most wasted foods – fruits and vegetables – are actually the healthiest: produce waste amounts to 39 percent of the food wasted by each person, according to the study published in the journal PLOS ONE.