When I was looking at the Life Science Communications Blog Fall 2010 a health article from the New York Times Blog caught my eye. The article is called "From Farm to Fridge to Garbage Can". The main point from the article is about how much food a typical family wastes. This really interests me due to the fact that at my dorm I am in the process of trying to start this event where the wasted food from the cafeteria that has not been touched can be brought to the local homeless shelter that same day. One day I saw the cook through out an entire pan of food that had not even been touched at all.
According to the article, "By most estimates, a quarter to half of all food produced in the United States goes uneaten — left in fields, spoiled in transport, thrown out at the grocery store, scraped into the garbage or forgotten until it spoils". This is a major problem due to the fact that world hunger is a major issue that we are dealing with right now. If half of the food in our country is being wasted then how are we letting children die every day from malnutrition.
Wasting food affects the environment, the economy, and especially a persons health. In our economy right now we are used to only eating "perfect", genetically modified foods. This is a major problem because people who think that a food is "rotten" without proper knowledge just throws the food in the garbage. The article gives the advice that if there is a small brown or mushy spot just cut it off and the food is still perfectly fine to consume. I think with more awareness of this new way of thinking about food hopefully families in the United States will start reducing their amounts of waste.
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