It's not just the food being wasted

I read an interesting article today from the Murdoch University website. According to the Biosecurity and Food security chair there, Dr. Shashi Sharma, a lot of the food wasted has to do with us being ignorant of the extensive process that has to be taken to get a lot of the foods we eat. 

He's not talking about refined foods, either. Yes, it is true that a lot of effort is probably put into making certain packaged foods or foods that are easily preservable. But he's not talking about this. He's talking about real food. Food that is grown. Food that starts out as living and breathing animals. Do you know how much water is used in the production of these things?

Let's not even think about the labor put into this. Let's put that aside for momentarily. Let's just think in terms of water.

To produce 1lb of potatoes, 119 gallons of water is needed. If you think that's a scary number, you probably don't want to know how much goes into producing 1lb of beef. I'm going to tell you anyways: 1,799 gallons. Almost 2,000 gallons goes into producing only 1lb of beef. Although chicken and pork weigh in at less, (468 gallons and 576 gallons) it's still a lot. This is how it is with meat. It takes more water to produce because the animals the meat comes from require more care than a tomato plant might. Read more

1lb of potatoes and beef, 1 gallon of water

Let's think about this in terms of use. How far does a pound of beef, or meat, usually go? Not very far. Maybe a family meal if you have a small family.

We happen to be a nation of meat enthusiasts, as well. The United States consumes more meat than any other country in the entire world. On a brighter note, this website says although this is true, the amount of consumption has gone down, at least a little bit, but ultimately, things aren't looking too good for us at this point. In 2011, 26.3 billion pounds of beef were produced. More

But there's something that doesn't add up here: how can I buy a pound of beef at the grocery store for $4.00 or so? I'm not sure how much money that much water would cost, but I know it's not less than $4.00. I'm not sure how much money would go to paying the laborers who work in these areas, either. Some farm hands make more than $12.00 an hour. I'm certainly not suggesting that they get payed less, but I am wondering how this all adds up. I can't imagine how this works, but I know this sounds like a waste. 

The food itself before it is wasted already has baggage. It has a long trail of waste following it even before it's thrown out, and it is thrown out. Endhunger.org says we throw away about 263 million pounds of food a day. I already mentioned how much water goes into producing a lot of our favorite foods. Now factor in our daily amount of waste. That's not a very nice number, is it?