Ask McFartnuggets: “Why Do Americans Waste So Much Food?”

Dear McFartnuggets: 

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations about 40% of all food in America gets wasted, around 165 billion dollars worth every year! Why is it that Americans waste so much damn food? I thought they were eating it all! How can you waste that much food and still be obese? Imagine if they were eating it! -- Lisa from Vancouver, British Columbia

Dear Lisa:

Yes Americans do waste a lot of food and it’s a serious problem. I think it’s because too many people are trying to eat healthy these days. The majority of wasted food seems to be produce. People in America want to try to eat healthy so they stock up on stuff like tomatoes, kale, and cucumbers. Then, after a couple days the shit goes bad and they have to throw it out. It goes bad because people like the idea of eating fresh vegetables, but when it comes down to it vegetables taste really boring and old vegetables (while still edible) taste like crap. Now if everyone was surviving mainly on Triscuits and Twinkies that take longer to go bad, I think you’d see less food waste. If people stopped buying so much perishable crap you’d see those food waste numbers drop drastically. Of course you’d also have farmers losing their livelihoods. The fact is, farmers need to harvest their crops and make money. There’s simply not enough people who want to eat vegetables and fruits so a lot of it goes to waste. You can only eat so many vegetables in a day and each day that goes by they grow more and more mold. Our farming system is simply a flawed food system that lends itself to wastefulness. It’d be a lot easier to just plant fewer crops than force people to eat vegetables, but we need our farming industry. As long as that’s the case you’re going to see us wasting a shitload of food every year. The thing is, what are we going to do with the wasted food anyway? When was the last time you saw a homeless man eating a head of cabbage? If you went to a homeless person with a handful of turnips they’d probably tell you to go fuck yourself. Homeless people like vegetables about as much as housed individuals, that’s why the only people dumpster diving for wasted produce are vegan, gluten-free hipsters. If we were all vegans that might help the food waste problem, but then the meat industry would be in jeopardy which creates the same economic problem. Food waste is just a sad truth of life and until you see hobos munching on bell peppers I don’t think it’ll change any time soon.

You'll find dumpsters full of this crap all across America. Dumpster bacon on the other hand is incredibly rare.

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