[linkregister]

You might not want to visit a farm, processing plant, warehouse, grocery store, or restaurant. They all throw away enormous amounts of food. Throwing away a Big Mac because it got too cold is a rounding error in perspective.

That said, we produce more food than we ever have. Is there a difference to starving people whether a grain of wheat went ungrown or was wasted?

What was the author meant to do, walk the hamburger and fries (with bites missing) to his closest homeless shelter?

[kakarot]

In kindergarten, I starred in a play that haunted me for years and years. My role was to explain the amount of food waste produced by America every year.

I wonder how it is today, but at the time it was on the order of half a billion tons a year.

Spent the rest of my childhood trying to be hyper-conscientious about the waste I produced.

Got to high school, got a job at a local restaurant, eventually moved onto large-scale corporate catering, and then went to live and work on a farm.

As I moved up the scale of food production I only saw more and more waste. It was sickening but at the same time completely understandable when you realize that there are diminishing returns. The larger your business is, the more waste becomes "not worth our time".

I just can't feel bad about throwing away half a pizza here and there anymore.

After I left the farm I took one more job in food service before moving to tech, and that was at a small-scale startup that produces healthy, fresh, TV dinner style foodstuff, and distributes them at retail locations.

I was blown away at how efficient the whole process was. One of the chief philosophies of my boss was conservation. With a business model that revolved around maintaining a supply of each meal reflective of its demand, and making dishes that could be built upon common base ingredients, we were able to exactly calculate the amount of food we needed to make each day. If for some reason there was a piece or two of chicken left, or some rice, an employee would just take it home. I just wish every place could be that committed to not wasting food, by creating a business model that incentivizes such behavior with a better profit margin.

Part of the issue with scale is that this extra profit margin becomes more and more marginal. Supporting local farms, co-ops, and cooks is probably the best thing we can do to enable less food waste across the industry.

[PacketPaul]

About 1/3 of the food in the US is wasted. And this is exactly what we want!

Food is a renewable yet spoilable resource. Easy to create, hard to store long term. Having more food then we need means the system has the capacity to absorb disruptions. If we consumed 100% of the food created, any disruption such as a cold spell in Florida would cause people to go hungry.

[pbhjpbhj]

Resources farmed is not the same as food produced. If you consumed all food produced but had stocks of farmed resources that could be used to make more food (wheat, sesame, beef, onions, say) then with excess capacity you could readily produce more food. Our supply chains are such that we can go from field to table in a day, that allows us to go field to freezer (or canning factory, or whatever) too.

This perhaps relies on non-capitalist management of food production however.

tl;dr I don't agree with your conclusion.

[betenoire]

My head agrees with you. My mom's voice in my head fills me with guilt.

[linkregister]

Mine too. I have the terrible habit of finishing all the food on my plate, even though 1/4 of it will be converted to fat/simple sugars. Our portions are much bigger than those our parents had.

[stephen_g]

Are you talking about in the US? Because they're much larger than most of the rest of the world too!

I was pretty amazed the first time I went - for McDonalds specifically, the US's medium size for drinks and fries is bigger than our large size in Australia! And we have no super-size or drink refills. (Our Burger King equivalent is about the only fast food chain I can think of that does free refills. It's very rare for restaurants in general here).

[maehwasu]

Time to free yourself from the moms.

[msie]

Well, I guess I should give up on recycling and get a gas-guzzling car because doing my share isn't going to make a difference. Maybe I should rob a bank because banks are being robbed everyday. The author could have saved it for later or heated it in a microwave because he spent good money for it.

[PhasmaFelis]

That still wouldn't make it useful. Most westerners consume far more calories than we need to survive. Eating beyond that is just for pleasure; from a purely practical standpoint, it's just as "wasted" as if you threw it away.

[stctgion]

Microwave it like the rest of us

[QuantumGravy]

No no no, you separate out the vegetation, if any, and keep it aside. Microwave any non-vegetable remainder for 15-30 seconds, depending on the mass of the burger: just enough to warm the meat. Transfer from microwave to toaster oven in two halves, toast briefly to crisp the buns, re-sizzle the meat, and melt the cheese. Arrange vegetation back in between. Enjoy a McDonald's burger that rivals its freshly served cousin. Finally, sit back and question the life decisions that lead you to putting this much thought into reheating fast food from McDonald's.

[linkregister]

What about the energy wasted to cook that food? There are freezing Inuit who could have used it.

[chillwaves]

It takes far more energy to create a big mac than to nuke one.

[pc86]

Microwaving fast food french fries is a special kind of alchemy that somehow turns them into concrete.