Food wastage is becoming a serious problem if no action is taken

There are millions of people around the world that are starving while millions of tons
of food are being tossed in the garbage. This imbalance is expected to grow worse as
the worlds population increases, unless actions are taken to reduce the waste. Food
wastage is food that is discarded or uneaten by human, and it mainly occurs during the
stages of production, processing, retailing and consumption (Food waste, n.d.). Food
wastage is indeed a global problem to the environmental and economic issue. Every
year, the total number of food waste produced globally is more than sufficient to feed
approximately 1 billion hungry people in the world (Newcomer, 2013). The House of
Lords EU Committee (Gravells, 2014) stated that food that is wasted across the
European Union every year is nearly 90 million tonnes and could even rise to 126
million tonnes by 2020. However, food that is produced each year but not eaten
guzzles up a volume of water equivalent to the annual flow of Russia's Volga River
and is responsible for adding 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases to the planet's
atmosphere (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [FAO], 2013).
Food wastage will become a global problem to the environmental and economic issue
unless we buy the exact amount of food that we need, be a conscious food consumer,
and handle food effectively.
In our daily lives, we tend to spend more money on foods than other daily
items. Most people buy more food than what they can eat and they will eventually
have to throw some away. We should buy the exact amount of food that we need and
avoid food waste by shopping smarter (Hunt, 2013). Planning before shopping will
reduce the amount of food waste. For example, think about the meals that we planned
to make and purchase the exact amount of food that are necessary before shopping to
avoid over purchase excessive food. If a recipe requires 3 potatoes, dont buy a whole
bag of potatoes, just buy a loose product so that the exact number of items will be
used. Another way to prevent food wastage is making a grocery list before hand and
this will avoid buying in bulk during shopping. We should buy only the exact amount
of food that is planned to consume and wait until perishables are all used up before
buying more. Nevertheless, we should be more realistic when buying food during
shopping so that we wont buy excessively or else food may not be able to consume in
time. Usually, shopping centre will hold many sales and promotions to attract
consumers to buy more of their unsold stocks to prevent their unnecessary loss.

However, we should be smart about sales and promotions during shopping to avoid
being tempted by buying more products with offer prices. This will cause us to buy
more offer products and store it at home; eventually we may forget about what we
bought and end up throwing away. We must never get roped easily by sales and
promotions into buying more than what we need to consume. Sales and promotions
such as buy one, get one free (BOGOF) offers will encourage consumers to buy
more of their unsold stocks (Food Waste in The United Kingdom, n.d.).
Furthermore, we must be a conscious food consumer such as keeping track of
the food that we bought and then remember eating them, so that we do not have to
throw away spoilt food (Hunt, 2013). For example, we need to organize our kitchen
properly by prioritizing food carefully such as used up all the ingredients that is going
to spoil soon. In this way, older ingredients would be more likely to use up before it
expires. Another way to prevent food wastage is we should check the fridge weekly if
possible to make sure that fridge is well-functioned, so that the food in fridge wont
spoil easily when fridge is not functioning well. We can also eat leftovers to help
prevent food wastage. According to a research, leftovers can be repurposing into new
dishes through certain cookbooks where recipes are designed to incorporate leftovers
(Hunt, 2013). Besides, money and time also can be saved by eating leftovers. For
example, we dont have to waste too much time to consider what food to eat for the
next meal. In addition, when eating out at a restaurant, it is highly recommended to
pack the unfinished food and bring them home and freeze it to avoid food wastage
instead of discarded by the restaurant. This way, we could finish the leftovers other
day.
Last but not least, we should also handle food effectively as a way to prevent
food wastage. A better storage such as storing foods in airtight containers is an
effective way to handle fruits and vegetables or leftovers. Storing foods in freezer will
enable the freshness of food as long as possible such meats, nuts, and etc. Food in
freezer is probably one of the easiest methods of food preservation. Another way of
food preservation is to pickle fruits and vegetables and we could store them for a
longer time. We could also handle food effectively by understanding the expiration
dates of food so that the food that we bought will not expire before we consume.
Expiration dates dont usually turns out safe to be consumed. It is just a suggestions

peak quality from the manufacturers. Sometimes the date at the bottom of the food
packaging is very confusing and it is not a best way to determine whether the food is
still safe to be consumed. If the food that are bought still looks nice, smells good and
taste great, then it should be fine to be consumed (Newcomer, 2013).

In conclusion, there are more than 800 million people go hungry every day, but
one-third of all the food produced was wasted before people consume. The effects of
food wastage will not only causes humans to suffer but the earth as a whole is also
suffering. However, food wastage could be prevented by many other methods and
ways. A FAO Director-General Jos Graziano da Silva (FAO, 2013) once said, We
all-farmers and fishers; food processors and supermarkets; local and national
governments; individual consumers must make changes at every link of the human
food chain to prevent food wastage from happening in the first place, and re-use or
recycle it when we cant. Therefore, all of us must make an effort to help prevent
food wastage.

References:
Environmental Protection Department. (2012). Problems & Solutions on Food Waste
Challenge.
Retrieved on June 24, 2015, from
http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/waste/prob_solutions/food_w
aste_challenge.html
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2013). Food waste harms
climate, water, land, and biodiversity.
Retrieved on June 21, 2015, from
http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/196220/icode/
Food Waste in the United Kingdom. (n.d.).
Retrieved on July 1, 2015, from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_waste_in_the_United_Kingdom
Food waste. (n.d.).
Retrieved on June 21, 2015, from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/?
title=Food_waste
Global food losses and food waste. (n.d.).
Retrieved on 23 June 23, 2015, from
http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/mb060e/mb060e03.pdf
Gravells, A. (2014). Lords Call For Urgent Action To Reduce Food Waste.
Retrieved on June 23, 2015, from http://resource.co/resource-use/article/lords-call%E2%90%98urgent-action%E2%80%99-reduce-food-waste
Hunt, C. (2013). The Environmental Action Everyone Overlooks: Five Easy Ways to
Reduce Food Waste.
Retrieved on june 24, 2015, from http://civileats.com/2013/05/03theenvironmental-action-everyone-overlooks-five-easy-ways-to-reduce-foodwaste/#sthash.kxCynOBE.dpuf

Newcomer, L. (2013). 29 Smart and Easy Tips to Reduce Food Waste.

Retrieved on July 1, 2015, from http://greatist.com/health/how-to-ways-reducefood-waste