Abstract
Back in the 1960s when I was a kid in rural Indiana, we lined up at the end of lunch period to dump our leftovers into a big plywood box with three holes cut in the top. One by one we filed past, scraping the uneaten items into this contraption before running off to recess. It was just what we did. Who knew or cared where all that gross slop went, anyway?
Not everything we grow is eaten.
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Notes
- 1.
Jean C. Buzby, Hodan F. Wells, and Jeffrey Hyman, The Estimated Amount, Value, and Calories of Postharvest Food Losses at Retail and Consumer Levels in the United States (Washington, DC: US Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, 2014).
- 2.
US Environmental Protection Agency, “Sustainable Management of Food: Basics,” 2017, https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/sustainable-management-food-basics#what.
- 3.
Jenny Gustavsson et al., “Global Food Losses and Food Waste: Extent, Causes, and Prevention,” report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, May 11, 2011, http://reliefweb.int/report/world/global-food-losses-and-food-waste-extent-causes-and-prevention.
- 4.
Alisha Coleman-Jensen et al., Household Food Security in the United States in 2015, Economic Research Report ERR-215, September 2016, https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=79760.
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© 2018 Jessica Eise and Ken Foster
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Foster, K. (2018). Spoiled, Rotten, and Left Behind. In: Eise, J., Foster, K.A. (eds) How to Feed the World. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-885-5_9
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