AUSTIN, Texas —
Reducing waste. It's a major opportunity to address the growing global demand for food and, in Texas and across the United States, to slow the rising cost of groceries.
According to Professor Jon Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, huge investments have been made on increasing food production, but not enough is being done to reduce the amount of food that's being wasted and ending up in landfills.
"We've spent billions and billions of dollars trying to get crops to grow faster, to improve yields," Foley said, 'yet globally, crop production has only increased about 20 percent in the last 20 years, despite all those efforts. And here's 40 percent of the world's food that is sitting around rotting."
Much of the 40 percent of food waste in the U.S. and other wealthy nations occurs along the supply chain, Foley explained, with foodstuffs being tossed out of home refrigerators, and dumped at places like restaurants and cafeterias.
"In poor countries, it's also about 30 to 40 percent," he said, "but mostly between the farmer and the distributor - the crop never got to distribution. It rotted in a storage system; it never got to a train or a truck. So, we have these big food waste problems everywhere in the world, but it kind of depends on the context of where you are."
Already, hundreds of millions of people in the world are hungry, and the number is predicted to grow along with the population, which is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050.
Consumers have a number of ways to reduce food waste, keep it out of landfills and keep more money in their pocket. For example, Foley suggested, use up leftovers and learn how to tell when food goes bad - it isn't always the "sell-by" or "use-by" date - and change shopping habits.
"I know this sounds inconvenient, but try to shop a bit more frequently and maybe for less volume," he said. "Have a small market near your house for things that are more perishable, like milk, eggs, meat and that kind of thing. For nonperishable stuff, that's where maybe you stock up and say, 'I can buy all the boxes of cereal I want. They're not going to go bad for a long time.'"
According to Foley, the average American throws away between $300 and $500 worth of food each year, with the biggest losses in meat and seafood.
Top Stories
A Food Waste Problem: Your Kitchen & Around the World
- Top Stories
-
-
Nearly all US states see hefty drop in teen births
The nation's record-low teen birth rate stems from robust declines in nearly every state, but most dramatically in several Mountain States and among Hispanics, according to a new government report.
-
Texas has 8 of top 15 fastest-growing cities in US
New estimates show Texas has eight of the nation's 15 fastest-growing cities.
-
Astros vendor fired, took snow cones into bathroom
A vendor at Houston's Minute Maid Park has been fired after a fan filmed him taking a tray of snow cones into a stadium bathroom and putting it on the floor of the stall while using the facilities.
-
Vote on gay Scouts comes at emotional moment
The Boy Scouts of America's national leadership will vote Thursday on whether to allow openly gay Scouts in its ranks, a critical and emotionally charged moment for one of the nation's oldest youth organizations and its millions of members.
-
'Everything came down on top of me'
Voices from the scene, compiled by reporter Michael Kinney.
-
AP photographer sees kids pulled from Okla. school
Editors Notes:
Oklahoma City-based AP photographer Sue Ogrocki was at the elementary school destroyed by a tornado and saw rescuers pulling children out of the rubble. This is her account of what she witnessed. -
Texas Tries to Bring Constitutional Right to Privacy to Digital Age
Cell Phone and Email Data Protections Considered
-
Texas deputy killed in wreck, suspect detained
An off-duty Harris County sheriff's deputy has been killed in a traffic accident that's led to another driver charged with intoxication manslaughter.
-
Tornadoes slam Plains, Midwest; 1 dead in Okla.
When Lindsay Carter heard on the radio that a violent storm was approaching her rural Oklahoma neighborhood, she gathered her belongings and fled.
-
Activists say 28 Hezbollah members killed in Syria
Fierce street fighting in a Syrian town near the Lebanese border has killed at least 28 elite members of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group, activists said Monday, as Syrian government forces pushed deeper into the strategic, opposition-held town.
- More Top Stories Headlines
-
Nearly all US states see hefty drop in teen births
