You Might Be Wasting Food, Even If You’re Not Throwing It Away - Union of Concerned Scientists
▻http://blog.ucsusa.org/doug-boucher/ways-we-waste-food
Now, half a century later, food waste has grown from family stories into a worldwide policy issue. A common estimate is that 40% of food is wasted. Scientific papers analyze consumers’ feelings about the sensory and social qualities of meals, and reducing waste is becoming just as much a concern as local, organic, and community-supported. This issue is critical. Yet an important part of the food waste problem remains unseen.
This additional waste involves not the food that is thrown out because no one eats it—but the food we do eat.
[...]
But neither overconsumption nor consumer waste are the largest way we waste the resources that can be used to produce food. That turns out to be livestock production—the dark red sections in the graphic above. Livestock are an extremely inefficient way of transforming crops (which they use as feed) into food for humans, with loss rates ranging from 82% (in terms of protein) up to 94% (by dry weight) once all of the feed they consume during their lifespans is considered. It’s not food that goes into our garbage or landfills, but it represents an enormous loss to the potential global supply of food for people just the same.
