That's a massive amount, and that is just waste in the household, not waste in the farm or factory.
I can understand some wastage of salad and berries etc, but they're all lighter stuff. How can the average westerner waste 2kg food a week???
- 1.5 McDonald's quarter-pounder sandwiches [1]
- or 2.5 portions of McDonald's medium fries [2]
That seems like a lot of food to waste. Like that just doesn't pass the smell test...
Maybe they're counting liquids like milk too, that's gone past the expiration date? Otherwise I just can't wrap my head around this.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_Pounder#Product_descri...
[2] https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/help/faq/19041-how-much-d...
On that note, it’s nearing time for me to make more limoncello/orangecello...
I still don’t think I’m particularly efficient, just that I waste a lot less than I used to, and if I could fit a freezer chest in my apartment, I know a few ways that I could waste even less. Mainly what I do now is to shop at a local grocery just about every day, I’m blessed with an abundance of those and good options, and try not to buy more than I will cook in a day or two. This has become easier since switching to an almost entirely meat, egg and vegetable diet so I don’t have dairy products, soy products, bread, pasta, cereals, noodles, beans, or anything besides my spices, dried herbs, salts, oils and vinegars sitting around. Despite that, I still end up throwing away more than I would like every few weeks, but probably not 2kg a week.
Had I grown up in a household with people that knew how to manage a household, it would have been a lot less trial and error, but with our over reliance on packaged foods instead of just what you can find in the produce section and at the butcher, probably a lot of people like me are growing up not learning how to manage their pantries and fridges.
That’s without even factoring in restaurants. It isn’t uncommon for people to not finish their food and leave it rather than taking the rest with them, and more so the more people eat out. Rather than finishing their leftovers at home, if they even took it home, people will often just go out to eat again the next day.
Refrigeration in general encourages the behavior, without delivering on convenience since you generally have to reheat or partially recook the food only to have something inferior to the more convenient, freshly made by someone else option.
People I've known feel accomplished just by asking to take leftovers home and placing them in the refrigerator with the feigned intention of eating them, knowing full well they will spoil and go to waste. It's an absurdity; they add packaging waste (often plastic at least in the bag) to their charade, mostly because they don't want to appear wasteful at the location they didn't finish their meal, and wish to dispose of it in the privacy of their home after spending energy on refrigerating it for a week.
Then if you throw some sociopathy into the mix, there's an even greater sense of accomplishment in knowing what you're doing is actually increasing the waste by pointlessly packaging up the food destined for the landfill because you'll never actually eat it. Inconveniencing the staff to package your leftovers on top of it is just gravy.
Have you ever been to a restaurant? Most people throw out over 25% of the food on their plates.
This is all a symptom of a distorted market place. Food's too cheap thanks to subsidized farming.
I've worked in a few. As a European I'd say food waste was lower than that.
Id expect restaurant food waste to be higher, as they can't personalise portion sizes as effectively, so unless most people eat out most days, I don't see how that could account for all the waste.
But apparently it does? I really hope peelings etc are included, because even then there's still a family out there wasting 3kg+ of food/person/wk, just to balance my family out.
https://www.nielsen.com/ca/en/insights/news/2016/dining-with...
Looks like it's about twice as often as in Europe. Interestingly Asia/Pacific is even higher (cheap street food FTW!)
It is easy to order a smaller portion of most meals. The problem lies on the client in this case.
If that seems wasteful to you, then I assert you're not looking at the big picture. Habitual overeating causes even worse portion control in the future, which causes even more food waste in the long run.
You could also cover your plate and put it in the fridge. Doing that requires the same amount of self-control as your prescription of clearing your plate in the trash once you're full. Both are hard for many people to do.
It's easier to exercise restraint when serving than when eating. For example, Google successfully reduced food consumption and food waste by reducing the plate size in cafes. [1]
> Portion control is unrelated to how much food you make
Not entirely. Even in the fridge, food will only stay good for a certain amount of time. Most people won't want to eat the same thing more than 3 meals in a row. These are also reasons for overeating or throwing food out.
1. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-i-lost-30-pounds-over-two...
This is an average. Everyone is wasting this on average. So presumably there's either a stigma against wasting food, which makes it all the more crazy, and/or people that waste food aren't interested in this kind of article. That would suggest they waste even more than average.