40% Of Food Produced Goes To Waste, While One In Six Go Hungry

Vicki Escarra, the president and CEO of Feeding America, calls hunger America's "dirty little secret." Mara Schiavocampo from NBC Nightly News discovered America's hunger problems first-hand as she visited a struggling family in Branford, Connecticut.

Though the mother of this family says her three kids always used to have three meals a day, they skip breakfast most days and she eats at a soup kitchen since being laid off from her job in purchasing.

Food pantries across America have seen demand rise as times have gotten tougher, and Schiavocampo interviewed several other diners who said things have never been so bad for them. Meanwhile, studies estimate that 40% of all the food produced in America ends up in the garbage.

WATCH:

Comments

[lemondade]

02:30 PM on 12/05/2009

DOESN'T SURPRISE ANYONE THAT HAS BEEN IN THE MILITARY AND WORKED IN A MESS HALL. THEY FOOD THEY THROW OUT IN ONE MEAL COULD FEED HALF OF AFRICA!

[bluemirror]

04:52 AM on 12/05/2009

Let's compare the 49 million to the 47 million with no health care.

- Same people!

I wonder if Lieberman, Lincoln, and Landrieu (and the entire GOP) are going hungry today?

[ChangeurMind]

01:12 AM on 12/05/2009

old bread became cereal with sugar on top.

[emsmith]

08:57 PM on 11/30/2009

I worked in the retail bakery/deli business for about 15 years, the waste issue is very complicated. Does anyone really want the milk a coffee shop has heated twice? The places I worked tried to donate, but it was extremely difficult to find a group that would pick things up. Food safety is a large issue. Another factor is the consumer need to always see a large display of product and accepting that there may be the need to something else if what they want sells out.

[inc3000]

05:54 PM on 12/02/2009

Why not make less if you notice not many people buy it?

[txkayrose]

03:40 PM on 11/30/2009

I have preached to my son for years "I don't mind SPENDING money, I mind WASTING money". This went for food, clothes, games & movies, gas money, utilities, etc. It is a rare thing for food to get thrown out in my house. My second husband is still amazed (after 6 years) at my talents with left-overs and cheap cuts of meat.
Although he occasionally laughs at the thrift tricks I managed to learn from my grandmother (who lived through the Depression) he never complains when I manage to save us $3; $5; $15 with her ingenuity.
Ask me about milk jug tabs and buttons sometime!

[maribelle1963]

09:42 PM on 11/30/2009

Hey txkayrose--

What do you do with milk jug tabs and buttons?

(I also had two grandmothers like that, rest their souls.)

[TimtheEnchanted]

07:51 PM on 11/29/2009

This is not a new statistic. For generations the problem has been affordability and distribution of food supplies. Managed properly, the available tillable land around the world can produce more food than the population of the world requires.

[inrealtime]

07:22 AM on 11/29/2009

Wait till the plan for the $500 B cuts to medicare goes into effect....we won't have to worry about seniors going to food banks.

[TimtheEnchanted]

07:53 PM on 11/29/2009

What, pray tell, will we have to worry about? Death Panels?

[thepoliticalcat]

05:32 AM on 11/30/2009

Remember, truth wins more converts than l!es. The $500B is being cut from *payouts to insurance companies.* I, for one, believe the insurance companies have taken enough from the taxpayer. Cut their subsidies and make me happy. Let's also remember that that $500B was a giveaway by the Bouchebags. Since they never gave anything to the people, only to their corporate buddies, it's a safe bet that the $500 was not going to ONE SINGLE THING that the Medicare users need.

[Cassandrawept]

06:48 AM on 11/29/2009

Why not feed children breakfast?
Rice, Oatmeal, Corn Meal, Wheat farina, and Wheat flour are fairly cheap. It's healthy breakfast food. As kids we had cornbread, oatmeal, milk toast, rice "pudding", and various bread products. Pancakes aren't very expensive to make. Eggs are fairly cheap as an ingredient in the items listed. Usually, if you have a roof over your head, you can afford to eat.
My mom was feeding ten children. There were times when she even offered dried milk and margarine. Even though we were in the top five percent in income, we still saved and used bacon grease (actually healthier for you than tranfatted margarines). Part of it was that cultural expectations in the fifties and sixties were that childrens were fed hot cereals for breakfast. It was healthy, even virtuous. Only lazy, ill educated people fed their children "cold!" cereal. And pop tarts!

[VoteOnPaper]

09:23 AM on 11/30/2009

I just bought a big bag of grits yesterday for a couple of dollars. Each day can be a different flavor based upon whatever soup, seasoning, or dressing is in the kitchen.

[Opus Loki]

08:25 AM on 12/01/2009

That was an educationally lazy statement. I ate cold cereal every morning with my 7 brothers and sisters. I'm 6 feet tall 210 lbs and the runt of the littler so if I ate dried milk and bacon grease at your house I would be 7 feet 325 lbs???

[bogan]

06:33 AM on 11/29/2009

Lots of homeless drama goin on in Rome Italy. Check this out:
http://www.anticharisma.com/Italy.html

[toxicbrainpoison]

11:51 PM on 11/28/2009

yeah cause scarcity makes the big wigs more $$. idiots.

[Suntio]

11:13 PM on 11/28/2009

I'm not saying we're better that you or anything like that but I think America is somewhat of an oddity when it comes to most things food-related.

[Blasphemy]

04:34 AM on 11/29/2009

Your post never reflects the "we're better than you" mentality. You make very solid observations and points. I can relate, because of the many places I've lived.

You're fanned for good points and being well spoken.

[marco01]

05:56 AM on 11/29/2009

So please, stay on the topic of the discussion rather than posting nonsense that you have no idea about. If you think America is so bad, please, for the sake of all, move to Iran, Iraq, or Somalia. Better yet join the Army and insult the enemy to death.

posted Nov 29, 2009 at 05:04:36 Reply Link
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talking out your @ss, eh?

FYI, I have served my country for twelve years in the USCG and I am so tired of this simpleton "love it, leave it" nonsense that the right often resorts to when they can't comprehend how someone could actually see things differently than they. It is intended to intimidate people into silence - very unAmerican and contrary to the spirit of democracy.

I have seen you criticize the actions of current American president time and again. Why do you hate America? If you don't like it, why don't you leave? Or better yet, shut your yap and go serve your country.

[Suntio]

11:10 PM on 11/28/2009

4. I was also amazed by how long produce would last in the fridge. Keeping strawberries in the fridge for a week, kiwis for 2 weeks, carrots for 3 weeks, all that was unheard of for me. Where I'm from, even if you keep them in the fridge, strawberries will start going mushy in 3 days, carrots in about 1 week. We don't have a whole lot of fresh produce available during the winter so we do all sorts of canning in the summer and fall.

5. The poverty in some areas. I live in rural Alabama and I can honestly say that I have seen places here that seem to have been taken right out of the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya.

6. The distance between people. My family and I have been living in the same house for 5 years now and to this day NO neighbor has come to my house. I have passed by their houses several times on Halloween, to ask them if they lost a dog that turned up in my yard. That's so strange to me because in my culture you're always around people: neighbors, relatives just stop by for a cup of coffee, of you go by their house, or you go out for a stroll and a chat with friends at a cafe.

No wonder people are fat, lonely and unhappy.

[Suntio]

11:10 PM on 11/28/2009

When I moved to America I was SHOCKED by several things:

1. The portions in restaurants are gargantuan. Where I'm from, what you guys call a plate we call a platter and use it to serve food family-style, where several people eat off a plate that size. Coming back to the portion size, I noticed that not very many people ate everything on their plate so a lot of it was going to waste.

2. The size of the drinks served in restaurants or anywhere else. Again, where I'm from a regular portion of soda is 1 cup. Here, it's a 2 qt mega-cup.

3. People buying 1, 2 carts FULL of groceries. Why so much? Unless you're super, super organized, there's no way you're using everything you're buying. If you are, you're not eating fresh produce, if any produce at all. Where I'm from, you pass by the market every day or every other day on your way home from work, pick your produce, chat with the baker, pick your cut of meat. When they started importing American chicken legs, we were appalled by the sheer size of those suckers and American chicken legs got a very bad rap because they tasted very differently from local chicken.

[Blasphemy]

04:27 AM on 11/29/2009

Where did you move from? Your comments about shopping and portion size ring true in England, where I spent 15 years. Far less wasteful than America. It is a good and prudent way to shop as you say. That is what I noticed in England. There is far less waste, people buy fresh produce and eat it while it's still fresh. They don't fill a hand basket in most cases, they buy carefully. Not only do they not waste their money, they also eat much healthier.

[DFL]

08:32 PM on 11/28/2009

After dark check some of the stores that have regular dumpsters out back and see all the perfectly good things thrown away, and how many things that are not even up to the expiration date yet, in some cases enough good food to feed a small town.

[Artemis34]

10:36 PM on 11/28/2009

My retired folks in the states go to grocery stores to get fresh produce they'll throw out, not because it is bad, but it is blemished or something like that, then they take it to food pantries. It is part of a United Church of Christ program.

[MJinCanada]

10:31 PM on 11/29/2009

I think it depends a lot on the neighbourhood. While I was waiting at the doctor's office last year I saw a bit about dumpster diving on Oprah and the food they pulled out of the bin behind an upscale grocery store was in better condition than what's sitting out in the produce section of my local store. (I once had to confront the produce manager and point out that all the bags of onions sitting out were rotting because they'd been frozen.)

[HockeyMom]

03:59 PM on 12/04/2009

I call those bins in the bottom of the refrigerator "rotters".

[UncleJimbo]

07:58 PM on 11/28/2009

And 90% goes to WAIST!