Food waste contributes to excess consumption of freshwater and fossil fuels which, along with methane and carbon dioxide emissions from decomposing food, impacts global climate change. In a new paper published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE, Kevin Hall and colleagues at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases calculate the energy content of nationwide food waste from the difference between the US food supply and the food eaten by the population. The latter was estimated using a validated mathematical model of human metabolism relating body weight to the amount of food eaten.
The researchers found that US per capita food waste has progressively increased by about 50% since 1974 reaching more than 1400 Calories per person per day or 150 trillion Calories per year. Previous calculations are likely to have underestimated food waste by as much as 25% in recent years.
This calculated progressive increase of food waste suggests that the US obesity epidemic may have been the result of a "push effect" of increased food availability and marketing with Americans being unable to match their food intake with the increased supply of cheap, readily available food.
Hall and colleagues suggest that addressing the oversupply of food energy in the US could help curb to the obesity epidemic as well as reduce food waste, which would have profound consequences for the environment and natural resources. For example, food waste is now estimated to account for more than one quarter of the total freshwater consumption and more than 300 million barrels of oil per year representing about 4% of the total US oil consumption.
Funding: This research was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Citation: Hall KD, Guo J, Dore M, Chow CC (2009) The Progressive Increase of Food Waste in America and Its Environmental Impact. PLoS ONE 4(11): e7940. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0007940
PLEASE LINK TO THE SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT (URL goes live after the embargo ends): http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0007940
FOR A PRESS-ONLY PREVIEW OF THE FULL ARTICLE, VISIT THE FOLLOWING URL: http://www.plos.org/press/pone-04-11-hall.pdf
Contact:
Kevin Hall
National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases
Email: kevinh@mail.nih.gov
Carson Chow
National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases
Email: carsonc@mail.nih.gov
Rebecca Walton
Public Library of Science
Email: press@plos.org
Tel: +44 1223 463333
Journal
PLoS ONE