Food Waste in America: How You Can Help Rescue Food (2024)

FAQs

How to solve food waste in America? ›

Aim to cook and serve the right portions for the number of people you are feeding. Freeze, pickle, dehydrate, can, or make jam/jelly from surplus fruits and vegetables - especially abundant seasonal produce. Don't leave perishable food at room temperature for more than two hours.

Wholesome food that could have helped feed families in need is sent to landfills. Land, water, labor, energy and other inputs are used in producing, processing, transporting, preparing, storing, and disposing of discarded food.

Instead of wasting food in marriages and other functions, we can distribute them among hungry poor people. There are lots of ways to avoid food wastage. There are many families across the world living without food. Think about them and start feeding them whenever it is possible, instead of wasting it.

Measure your portions

Reduce waste by cooking only the amount you need. Measuring takes away the guesswork and makes it more likely you'll get the right amount.

What is the main problem of food waste? ›

But wasted food isn't just a social or humanitarian concern—it's an environmental one. When we waste food, we also waste all the energy and water it takes to grow, harvest, transport, and package it. And if food goes to the landfill and rots, it produces methane—a greenhouse gas even more potent than carbon dioxide.

There are many technologies currently in use for food waste management, including composting systems, anaerobic digesters for biogas production, IoT devices for monitoring and reducing waste in the supply chain and AI for optimizing food distribution and consumption patterns, among others.

USDA is doing its part to help make preventing food waste the first-best option for farmers, businesses, organizations, and consumers. A large number of USDA programs contribute to this objective, ranging from those supporting market and distributional efficiencies to those educating consumers about safe food storage.

Check your fridge often to keep track of what you have and what needs to be used. Eat or freeze items before you need to throw them away. If you have more food on hand than you can use or you need, consider donating your extra supply of packaged foods to a local food pantry or a food drive.

Grocery Store Food Waste

US retail stores generate about 16 billion pounds of food waste every year. Wasted food from the retail sector is valued at about twice the amount of profit from food sales.

USDA is doing its part to help make preventing food waste the first-best option for farmers, businesses, organizations, and consumers. A large number of USDA programs contribute to this objective, ranging from those supporting market and distributional efficiencies to those educating consumers about safe food storage.