Comment by arcticbull | Hacker News Reader

Comment by arcticbull | Hacker News Reader

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If they're throwing out 40% of the food they buy, then raising prices slightly and not throwing out 40% of the food should be accessibility-neutral no? Instead of buying 2 milks and throwing 1 milk out, you buy 1 milk for 2X the price and throw out 0 milk. At the end of the day you still drank 1 milk for the same effective price.

They already have significantly more than they need. Americans already pay less as a percentage of their paychecks for food than any other nation on earth.

What they're running out of though, is fresh water. Having two extra Colorado rivers' worth would be pretty nice in the southwest! [1] And that's just from beef. Don't get me started on the gallon of water it takes to grow a single almond in the California desert while asking people to skip showers [2]. [edit] While the Utah governor literally prays for rain. [3]

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/colorado-river-water-level-60-m...

[2] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-29/californ...

[3] https://governor.utah.gov/2021/06/02/gov-cox-invites-utahns-...

It seems the year 2022 is a sort of "experiment" in terms of testing this theory. Food prices have inflated ~10% this year, nice round number although lower than your suggested "2x the price." Do you think this resulted in less waste?

> At the end of the day you still drank 1 milk for the same effective price.

Why don't then people just buy 1 milk today at today price instead of buying 2 and throwing one away? They'd still have drunk 1 milk, but for half effective price. Why aren't people already doing that?

People often make fun of economists with their very specific mathematical models of perfectly round customers, production functions, etc. They often have a point. It is important to not forget, however, that the popular understanding of economics is even worse, and your comment is a great example of that.

Because they hope to drink the other jug of milk tomorrow, and sometimes it works, sometimes, sometimes some of the milk gets sour.

The problem is that spending an hour to drive to a grocery store and an hour driving back also costs something, in fuel and labor / time, so it totally makes sense to buy milk with some excess just in case more would be needed.

As said upstream, eliminate most zoning restrictions, make living more densely more accessible. (I line in NYC and the fact that I can walk most anywhere I need is great.)

If you wanted an answer to your question you could google “sources of food waste USA” however if you’d like to make a proper counterpoint instead of a glib remark I’m all ears :)

> They'd still have drunk 1 milk, but for half effective price. Why aren't people already doing that?

I think I've already mentioned expiration dates and education around them, no? [1] My secondary argument is that people value things that are cheap less, and are more likely to waste them.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2022/07/28/1114335397/expiration-dates-l...

You are assuming that there are no families that can barely afford what they need and really can't afford the waste or can afford the price increase.

Fasting is healthy but I'd rather it not be done because you can't afford to eat.

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