How much food gets wasted before it reaches our dinner plates, and how much do we then throw out uneaten?

Question

For example, for every apple we eat, how many never make it to the supermarkets and get dumped, how many get dumped at the supermarket and how many get dumped from peoples homes?

I'd like to find out how much of our foods that we never actually use and what get dumped in the food chain.

Answer 1

Well, from looking at what ppl leave on their plates in restaurants and what I've seen dumped from markets, I'd say about 20%

Answer 2

What is more scary is the amount of food that gets wasted when we eat it unnecessarily.

Have you any idea how many millions of tons of food are used to make thunder thighs.

How much energy could be saved if people only ate for nutrition and not for recreation or out of compulsion.

and then there are the real food wasters- bulimics who eat and barf it and then can't even maintain a decent body temperature and have to have the temperature up high to keep from being cold.

uh what was the question again..........

oh yeah there is a lot of waste...

and yeah i feel better now that i got to say that.

Answer 3

a lot of food will  waste..

Answer 4

One wya of checking this out is to go to your local supermarket and check out the bins.  My fatehr worked as a security guard and saw the amount of food that a small M&S store threw out each night.  Nothing recycled, given away free, it was all just dumped in the bin, alot of it not at the sell-by-date either. (we had many a meal as did others when they also reasiled)

Another test is to leave a bin near your sink and collect all excess food waste and just see how much is wasted each week.

I was always brought up to think 'waste not want not', we virtually wasted nothing and re-used everything that we could.

Answer 5

The national (US) average is 1/3 of your solid waste is organic.

Also the average American produces 4.4lbs of trash per day.

So if there are three people living in a house that produces 13.2lbs of trash in the last 24hrs, you can estimate that 4.4lbs of it was anything from compost-able grass clippings to chicken bones you could give to the outside cats.

The second third is paper and the last third is glass, plastic and metal.

Answer 6

My grandma would make us eat our dinner for breakfast if we didnt finish it. "waste not, want not" was her big saying.

Answer 7

I don't know the hard numbers but I know it's way to much.

Answer 8

A whole heck of a lot!