2% of all American energy is used for production of wasted food

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Americans are now wasting 40% of their food, and the USDA and EPA want to do something about it.

"On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency announced their plan to tackle food waste in America, a problem that has grown by 50 percent since the 1970s. Today, as much as 40 percent of food produced in America is thrown away, amounting to 1,400 calories per person per day, $400 per person per year, and notably, 31 million tons of food added to landfills each year.

The USDA’s and EPA’s solution is a program called the U.S. Food Waste Challenge, which invites food producers, retailers, consumers, nonprofits and government agencies to sign up and “list the activities they will undertake to help reduce, recover, or recycle food waste in the United States.” So far, General Mills, Unilever, and the Food Waste Reduction Alliance are among the program’s first participants.

As part of the program, the USDA is also addressing food waste in schools, updating nation-wide food loss estimates from retailers, pilot-testing a meat-composting program, and working to make it easier for companies to donate misbranded meat and poultry and imported produce that doesn’t meet the country’s strict quality standards instead of throwing it away. The agency will also be educating consumers about food waste and correct ways to store food — a lack of understanding that the Natural Resources Defense Council has cited as one of the major causes of food waste in America."

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/05/2105511/american-throw-out-40-percent-of-their-food-which-is-terrible-for-the-climate/