"tasty-looking sun-dried tomato loaf"

Being the nerd I am, I first came across the subject of food waste while on a TED talk watching spree. TED talks appeal to me because all you have to do is listen to a very smart person talk for maybe 20 minutes, and suddenly you know all about some random issue! Anyways, I clicked on a video dramatically titled “The Global Food Waste Scandal,” and a guy named Tristram Stuart introduced the “scandal” to me. I’m convinced that his teenage experience raising pigs contributed most to his current involvement in combatting food waste. He recounts, “One morning, when I was feeding my pigs, I noticed a particularly tasty-looking sun-dried tomato loaf that used to crop up from time to time. I grabbed hold of it, sat down, and ate my breakfast with my pigs.” This reminds me of something I would do (in fact, I may have snatched a banana out of the trash once), so I found Stuart very relatable and down to earth. He didn’t appear pretentious or condescending at all; he simply explained the facts of wasted food in a clear and entertaining way.  Stuart then goes on to explain the research that went into writing his book and shows some graphs that reveal the tremendous food surpluses in rich countries as well as the shortages in poorer countries. All in all, I owe Stuart for exposing me to this important issue and I believe him when he says “At the moment, we are trashing our land to grow food that no one eats.”
Click here to watch the video. 

                Later, I found an old 2011 article called “How to Feed a Growing Planet” while riffling through my stack of National Geographic magazines. In comparison to Stuart’s talk, this article was more focused on the demand of feeding the world’s increasingly large population rather than how appalling food waste is. The article is paired with excellent graphics depicting the average amount of food purchased and wasted per person in the US during the course of 1 year. For instance, the average person buys 131 pounds of fresh vegetables, but wastes 39 pounds! I was disappointed that Amanda Fiegl, the writer, failed to include why this food is wasted. Of course that cannot be measured, but she could have given possible reasons such as the food going rotten or people throwing it out because it looks unattractive. However, she does offer solutions such as adjusting diets so food production is most energy-efficient, increasing research on productivity, and reducing waste. Still, the most insightful part of the article is her summary of The Coming Famine by Julian Cribb: “Poor countries, they say, can improve crop storage and packaging. And rich countries could cut back on resource-intensive foods like meat.”  I was intrigued by these 2 points and plan to research more about them.