Activist Tristram Stuart: Global Food Waste

After watching the video by author and activist Tristram Stuart, I gained so much more knowledge in regards to the global food waste scandal. I really gained a much deeper understanding of just how much food is wasted throughout western countries and just how much food goes to waste before it ever leaves the field. As I listened to Mr. Stuart speaking, it resonated in my head that I too am just as guilty as the rest of human civilization when it comes to wasting perfectly good edible food.

Biweekly, my parents have me clean out the refridgerator and among the mounds of leftovers, there are many edible foods such as bread that has gone moldy, lettuce and tomatoes that have gone brown and soggy, plenty of expired foods

The real shocker was hearing his estimation of alleviating the hunger of over thirty million people in the world all by being more concious about the food that we waste as a nation. Currently, over one third of our food is being either wasted or thrown out because it simply does not meet the “criteria” of restaurants, and grocery stores to be considered “good enough” for human consumption and for no other ridiculous reasons like size or shape. Food waste is currently valued at over four hundred billion dollars per year and as the population continues to expand, the costs could very well rise to over fifteen billion dollars per year. “Some assert that population growth creates pressure that results in innovations such as food production”. (Haviland et. al 2015, 242). The United States currently has more food than is needed to feed the amount of people living here. Like anything else, there are people who would argue that our countries wastefulness has absolutely no bearing on the poverty in other countries because it isn’t like those countries would have the disguarded food immediately but Stuart proves an extremely valid point in his discussion. Grains for instance are globally traded, and not unlimited by any means. So, with that being said by our country buying as much as they do and wasting as much as they do, it comes down to basic economics. High demand means less supply. This in turn drives the prices up to a point where poverty stricken countries can not access affordable