[nvme0n1p1]

Consumers are the last group I would blame.

https://www.usda.gov/about-food/food-safety/food-loss-and-wa...

> food waste is estimated at ... 133 billion pounds ... in 2010.

USA population in 2010 was 311M. 133B / 311M = 427 pounds per person.

I sincerely doubt the average consumer throws away 427 pounds of fresh food in a year.

[jandrewrogers]

That "waste" is almost certainly excess production that can't find a market + spoilage. It is entirely normal for farmers to literally dump their crops in these cases. Everyone in the supply chain does it to some extent.

Lack of market and spoilage makes it unavoidable. When I lived in farming communities there were massive piles where people dumped excess crops.

[hadlock]

When I got married our food waste probably tripled. My food waste as a single guy was significantly less than married. When I had kids it probably tripled again. Much like a horse to water, you cannot explain to a 3 year old that if they don't eat all the banannas before tomorrow, they will go bad. We probably throw out 1-2 lbs of fruit a week, which is ~100 lbs a year right there.

The kid might have ate 2 lbs of blueberries a week for six months, but surprise, they hate them now!

I can't count the number of half-full glasses of milk I've found in the last month, probably averaging 1 per day. Kids are extremely inefficient eaters unless it is covered in sugar or chocolate.

[mrob]

>they don't eat all the banannas before tomorrow, they will go bad

This one specifically has a good solution:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_bread

[altairprime]

The missing datapoint is that households are having to work more labor-hours per banana every year for decades, so the energy necessary to cook banana bread is in direct competition with the energy necessary to purchase bananas. Atomic Era assumptions that a household has the time, energy, capability, appliances, and electricity budget to cook banana bread no longer reliably hold in the U.S. and cannot be taken for granted as accessible to all families. (If this seems like a negative feedback loop, it is; see also food deserts, substitution of Added Sugars for more expensive-but-nutritional calories in the diets of our majority-obese population, and so on.)

[9x39]

If the point is that cost/calorie has risen too much, it's substantially worse in the cost/calorie sense to eat prepared food out of the home versus cook at home.

As an aside, a quickbread like banana bread happens to be one of the simplest to make with some of the cheapest shelf-stable ingredients, and almost every home has an oven and access to the ingredients. For those who like it, I highly recommend this recipe (Mark Bittmans):

===

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, plus some for greasing the pan

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

½ cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

¾ cup sugar

2 eggs

3 very ripe bananas, mashed with a fork until smooth

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans

½ cup grated dried unsweetened coconut

===

Step 1

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9- by 5-inch loaf pan.

Step 2

Mix together the dry ingredients. With a hand mixer, a whisk, or in the food processor, cream the butter and beat in the eggs and bananas. Stir this mixture into the dry ingredients; stir just enough to combine (it’s okay if there are lumps). Gently stir in the vanilla, nuts, and coconut.

Step 3

Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for 45 to 60 minutes, until nicely browned. A toothpick inserted into the center of the bread will come out fairly clean when it is done, but because of the bananas this bread will remain moister than most. Do not overcook. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes before removing from the pan.

[altairprime]

Worse in the raw cash outlay per food calorie, maybe, but you also have to adjust for food deserts — ancillary costs to acquire groceries @ IRS rate of $0.725/mile, nearest grocery store is 1.5 miles away, which doesn't sound like a lot but it sure does add up! — energy budget decisions for 15 minutes of food preparation vs. 15 minutes of extra study/rest/sleep, heat output of one hour of oven vs. lack of air conditioning at home during extended multi-week summer heat waves, and so on.

I'm one of those on a much-reduced budget without access to a home oven (kitchenettes and single-top induction burners are wonderful things), without central AC at home (I do miss it but AI replaced my former industry), and live in a food tundra (slightly higher food density than a desert but more from luck than urban planning), so if it's all the same to you, I'm just going to ignore the recipe and move on.

[entropyie]

I have two kids and this is pure bollox. They'll eat what they are given if they are hungry enough. Or eat the leftovers yourself. Cook the fruit and make compote. We never throw out edible food, virtually zero waste. Just make an effort.

[irishcoffee]

Same here, 3 kids, we don’t waste food. As an aside, we’re all slender. We just figured out how much of what to buy each week, plan our meals, etc. I also personally like eating leftovers for both breakfast and a packed lunch, which probably helps a bit.

[disgruntledphd2]

> I also personally like eating leftovers for both breakfast and a packed lunch, which probably helps a bit.

That definitely helps, I'm pretty bad at eating leftovers unless I put them in a new meal so we end up with more food waste than necessary.

Kids completely changing what they'll eat on a weekly basis also has a pretty large impact.

[irishcoffee]

Kids are difficult, I can attest to that. Realizing you’re not feeding your kids poison because you’re eating the same meal, is also a difficult realization.

I see nightmare kids via friends/neighbors, and all I can think is “stop treating your kids like they’re your coworkers, they’re your kids and they actually yearn for structure and ‘discipline’ in the sense that you are their whole worldview structure”

Kids want structure, rules, boundaries. They will test them, which is good.

[disgruntledphd2]

> Kids want structure, rules, boundaries. They will test them, which is good.

Oh yeah, totally. That being said, our eldest was super picky and changeable (and often didn't eat enough so it was a little concerning) so we often ended up with lots of staples that she one day decided she didn't like :shrug:

Mostly fixed now that she's older, but I can see how food waste happens. And more generally, if the kids get excited or distracted, there will often be waste.

[hattmall]

You are the outlier then, the situation described was spot on for all the parents I know.

[entropyie]

I think if you take a global outlook, you'll find I am not the outlier. Wasting food is a recent Western phenomenon.

[eudamoniac]

Is this like the famous "my dog will only eat fresh roasted chicken" you hear from certain kinds of owners? Because I'm pretty sure when a kid is hungry enough they will eat a banana.

Source: grew up poor, there was no food waste, none

[doodlebugging]

I'm a person who will definitely not eat a banana that is past its prime. I completely understand the option to just throw it out since bananas are inexpensive and widely available.

I have a solution that we have instituted here at home if you would like to cut waste on bananas and other perishable fruits and vegetables. We bought a food dehydrator. I was initially skeptical about the utility of the device but after several years of ownership I find it is one of the most useful tools for anyone who cooks at home.

Bananas, even those that are well past the point where I won't eat them, are ridiculously delicious when sliced and dried. The flavor concentrates so that a single banana chip can be like the old Lays Potato Chip slogan - no one can eat just one.

This also works great for berries like blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, goji berries, kiwi fruit, apples, plums, peaches, nectarines, cherries, etc.

We buy them fresh or grow them here and before they reach the toss stage, we dry them for future use. Some of the things are also great frozen. I have several pounds of berries from this year's crop in the freezer now and quite a few available for adding to granolas that we make here at home.

We have made fruit leathers in the past using strawberries and the flavor is better than the store-bought products.

I grow and dry vegetables too. Some of them are also freezer items.

Good luck with the grocery bill.

[aziaziazi]

Ripes bananas makes the best cakes or pancakes ! I got your point though.

[apercu]

Buy frozen fruit?

[qdotme]

1.5lb / day? I'd wager it's quite equally in thirds, would love to see the data.

I'd believe 0.5lbs/day/person in my household - cook enough for everyone to have seconds, but most of the time it's tossed (sometimes after some time spent in the fridge/freezer hoping for a reheat); stuff bought but inedible (chicken bones, etc)..

I'd believe similar in the distribution pipeline (just look at how much stuff are in the discounted aisle just about to fall off sell-by date + obviously moldy goods), and I'd believe similar in the production pipeline.

[reactordev]

No food gets thrown out in my house. We have trash from plastic and paper but food is consumed, by somebody. If it hits the expiration date then it’s today’s quick meal or dog food. I try not to throw away anything that is edible.

[qdotme]

Probably was that way before we got married and had a kid. And before our dog started getting older and we needed to watch what she eats.

Now the notion of "cook fresh every day" is a thing (rather than reheats), we try to do keep leftovers but eventually we run out of space for them.

[reactordev]

absolutely. Cooking smaller meals for the family to ensure it's all eaten or having no-cook alternatives for afterwards (hello graham crackers!) if you're still hungry. Normally I try my best to portion for who's going to eat. If I'm cooking for myself, its usually a one-pan meal.

[apercu]

Or composted to feed my garden. I hardly throw out any garbage.