Food Waste Affects Everyone

Once something is thrown away, the majority of people stop thinking about it and aren't interested in what happened to the people that don't have food. Food is a prevalent waste item in the United States. When people become full or do not fully enjoy something they start with a new plate of food. Few people stop and think about the resources it took to produce, transport, and prepare the food that is being thrown away casually. Food waste is an encompassing issue facing our community and the world.

In the book American Wasteland, the author Jonathan Bloom mentions many ways on how people waste food and shouldn't waste it and how the food is processed. A substantial amount of resource and money are put into producing our food and yet a massive amount of food is thrown away, without a second thought.

The person interviewed was Katherine Cisneros. Her thoughts on the book American Wasteland was pretty interesting and effective. She is a merch manager at my local Dollar Tree and has a good idea on how food is processed. A merch manager is often known as a purchasing manager who distributes the goods sold in the store. Katherine was fascinating to get an interview for a topic that efforts that Jonathan Bloom discussed in American Wasteland. Her thoughts on food waste are interesting she felt that it's a major problem and everyone should be involved in and it's true. ""People that are managers or the owns of the place that involves selling food it's ready to go for example buffeted and fast food""(Cisneros). When people think about food being wasted they mostly think about places that sell fast food and the first place they will always mention will be buffeted because they always cooked so much food that they might think that everyone likes.

The recommendations that were suggested to Katherine to further the current implementations on food waste. When going to the grocery store they should just purchase what you're going to use that week and not purchase more than they should, because it might be a waste of money and waste of food. Cleaning out the food cabinets to check if there cans that are expired or if they should give away food cans that they won't eat to a family member. During the interview She was attentive listening she made eye contact, good posture, and nodding. The level of interaction was highly professional but sometimes she was non-verbal communication with facial expressions. When the conversation about wasting food in the American Wasteland there were changes in her facial expression.

Some examples of successful food waste reduction or composting initiatives you've encountered or initiated at college. There are more composting initiatives in colleges than reducing food waste. That should be considered understandable and unfortunate and it also makes sense because reducing an amount of food waste is really hard mainly if people are not used to it and it will ask us to change our ways on how we eat. Besides, it might be regrettable because trimming our food waste is more important than composting our excess. One idea that is straightforward is trayless dining. ""Trays in an all-you-can-eat facility reduces food waste by staggering amounts.... Saint Joseph's has cut its wastes in half in the post-tray era. Reports from other campuses that have pulled trays ranges from 20 to 50 percent wastes reduction""(Bloom 241). When they started to pull out the trays from the schools they saved water and energy because there are no trays to wash.

A huge percent if the U. S food supply isn't used. We live in a throw-away society and our abundant food waste is just another reflection of that attitude it is a large driven by the reality that food is cheap in the United States. While global comparisons are difficult, it's safe to say that we do waste more food than other countries most people will agree with that. ""There are so many countries that are not able to have what most of us have and it includes mainly food. There are little children that only eat once a day and might not have water to drink and there are children that ask their parents to go out and buy them fast food because they don't want to eat food they have at home""(Cisneros). Children nowadays don't really like to eat at home they rather prefer eating at McDonald's, Burger King and other fast food places. One thing individuals can do to reduce food waste is being a smarter shopper and buying less. Most of us don't think we waste any food, because it disappears quickly in the disposal or into the trash can. People don't always use what they buy at the grocery store that's why it makes more sense to buy less food. Smaller shopping trips would be easier and if that doesn't work a plan out meals, make a detailed shopping list.

Food waste in the community doesn't really affect couple people it affects everyone. When you're going to the store or to your family's house there are homeless people asking for money for food because they don't have money for food and especially a place to stay it's hard for them to gain everything's being in the streets, and they don't have choice. Interviewing Katherine and learning about what she thought about food waste and having another person's opinion about it will change people's mind on how they think. American Wasteland by Jonathan Blossom has changed my way of thinking about wasting food. Knowing that there are people out there not having nothing to eat should change peoples mind about because everyone is the same and everyone has to eat not just one person.

Word Cited

Bloom, Jonathan. ""From Traylessness to Demand Tracking: Ideas and Innovations to Reduce Food Waste."" American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do about It), by Jonathan Bloom, Lifelong Books/Da Capo Press, 2011, pp. 241–241.

Cisneros, Katherine. Personal Interview. 26 November

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