A common mask of the implications of food wastage is its ability to decompose. Unlike say, clothing which embeds microplastics, food is technically biodegradable. Perhaps, this is why many fail to realise food overconsumption is actually a problem. Why is food overconsumption a problem? We first need to acknowledge the amount of energy needed to produce food.
Let’s unpack food production into its four main processes: Agriculture, transportation, food processing, and food handling.
An average of 2.1 quadrillion btu of energy is used a year on agriculture. From there, about 1.4 quadrillion btu of energy is used to transport food from farms to tables, these would include road transport, ships and air freights. Once in the hands of secondary producers, another 1.6 quadrillion btu of energy is used to turn raw goods into finished food products. Finally, as food products enter the market in restaurants or stores, a huge amount of 5 quadrillion btu of energy is needed to handle them in modes of refrigeration, packaging or restaurants. That’s in total, about 10.1 btu of energy!
Now most don’t think much about the amount of energy needed to produce the food we eat. For many of us, we choose the food we buy based on what we want to eat but seldom (arguably never) consider the carbon footprint of the actual process of making the food.
However, the actual overconsumption, we think is not the biggest problem here. The biggest problem here is that overconsumption often, and almost always, leads to some degree of food wastage, for some more than others.
Going back to the previous argument raised about food being biodegradable, it is evident now that the problem is not about it being able to decompose but the huge energy losses from wasting it. According to MoveForHunger, an organisation aiming to reduce food wastage, by throwing away one kilogram of beef, we are actually throwing out 50 000 litres of waters used to produce it. Similarly, if you pour one glass of milk away, we are essentially pouring out 1000 litres of water.
Additionally, whilst food can be biodegradable, spoiled food that ends up in landfill can often emit large amounts of methane gas, a huge contributor of greenhouse gases.
Overconsumption is not just about food wastage, its energy wastage, its environmental resource wastage, its increasing pollution. Ultimately, it’s putting an unnecessary strain on our environment.
References:
Saveonenergy (2019) America food production requires more than you think. [online] Available at: https://www.saveonenergy.com/learning-center/post/american-food-production-requires-energy/
Footprint (2019) The problem of food waste. [online] Available at: https://foodprint.org/issues/the-problem-of-food-waste/
