The Holiday season is always exciting: the breaks, twinkling lights, fun atmosphere, nostalgic music, and so on. However, these factors blind us from one of the major underlying issues these festivities contribute to—food waste.
It is surely no surprise that food waste is highest in the US during the holiday season. It is common to purchase too much food by mistake, and not plan for leftovers, especially for the festive meals we eat together. Specifically between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, there is an estimated 25% increase in food waste. Over $277 million worth of food is wasted between the two holidays, meanwhile Americans waste roughly 316 million to 320 million pounds of food on Thanksgiving Day alone.
Let us not forget that food waste is a year-round problem. In fact, the United States discards more food than any other country in the world: nearly 60 million tons every year. That’s estimated to be almost 40 percent of the entire US food supply.
There are dozens of reasons for food waste such as overambitious shopping, making too much food, not knowing how to cook a particular food, etc., but the biggest one is food spoilage. More than 80 percent of Americans discard perfectly good, consumable food simply due to the misunderstanding of expiration labels. Labels like “sell by”, “use by”, “expires on”, or “best by” are confusing to people. Consequently, they’ll toss it in the garbage to eliminate the risk of potential foodborne illness.
Once the food is thrown out, it sits decaying in landfills and produces nitrogen pollution, which causes algae blooms and dead zones. Wasting food has irreversible environmental consequences: it wastes the water and energy it took to produce it, and generates greenhouse gasses like methane, carbon dioxide and chlorofluorocarbons, which contribute to global warming. According to the World Wildlife Federation, the production of wasted food in the United States is equivalent to the greenhouse emissions of 37 million cars.
On the bright side, preventing food waste within a household can be easy. Implementing helpful routines to follow can go a long way. “I have a composter in my backyard,” Freshman Julianna Flores said. “At my house, if there are any leftovers that can be composted, they are composted. If they can’t be, they are made into another meal for another day.” Composting is a great example of these habits you can follow to reduce food waste, and there are lots of routes to take regarding leftovers. Flores uses them to cook new meals, meanwhile others may eat them as they are the next day. There are people who try to eliminate leftovers all together. They do this by taking smaller, more frequent grocery trips. This ensures that the amount of food you cook will be just enough for the home, and nothing will expire too quickly.
In a world where resources are scarce, let’s not take food for granted. Let’s use it mindfully for the sake of our planet’s health.
