Reply #9: They didn't include Europe either in the calorie calculations I quoted

[muriel_volestrangler]

They said that the US waste could feed 2 billion people (under a third of the world), but that's just 200 calories per person per day. The "US and Europe" claim comes, as I said, out of nowhere - there's no attempt to justify it with figures, and it's frankly unbelievable as stated. The US plus Europe is under 1200 million (and that's including all of Russia and Turkey) - about 17% of the world. To feed it 3 times over, the amount of food wasted would have to be about 95%. They never actually give any figures at all for 'Europe' - just waste in the US and UK (you can't assume the whole of the 830 million people in Europe has the same pattern of waste as the UK).

It's possible that they may have taken some statistic like "if the whole world turned vegan and food was produced as efficiently as possible, the world could be fed 3 times over", but that is different.

Yeah, I will leave them a comment pointing out the problems with their numbers.

On edit: I may have found the source of their claim. It could be this:

In Waste, author Tristram Stuart asks why North America and Europe throw away 30% to 50% of their food. He claims that the fresh produce discarded by farmers, manufacturers, supermarkets, and consumers could feed the millions of starving people in the world at least three times over. He argues that avoiding waste is the easiest remedy to a global food crisis.
...
http://development.asia/issue05/must-read-01.asp

My emphasis. There's a lot of difference between 'feeding the millions of starving people' and 'feeding the world'. It will depend on your definition of 'starving', but it's notable that quote talks about millions, not billions.

Yeah, there's a lot of food waste in developed countries, but it's not a simple matter of "enough food for 20 billion if only we stop throwing stuff away".