Summary 1
Tae-Seong Johnson
Professor Rafferty
ENGL 211c
9/9/2015
Where and How Foods are Being Wasted
Everyone knows that foods are being wasted, but not many people know that many foods (perfectly fine foods) are thrown away even before going into packages. The Washington Post’s journalist Jonathan Bloom expressed it best, as he said: “In the United States, “farm to fork” has become “farm to dumpster” as American farms, processors, manufacturers, grocers, restaurants and homes increasingly waste food”. According to Jonathan’s research, United States is wasting 1.3 billion tons of food per year, many of them are untouched ingredients directly from farms. John Oliver, through a television show called Last Week Tonight has put together some reasoning to why foods are being throw-out even before packaging, main reason is because, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) strict standards fruits and vegetables cannot be packaged even if it is perfectly edible to us, and because of the looks it can lose its one third of market value (only with USDA standard). John Oliver’s researches also have found out that there are many farm owners who would love to donate their fruits and vegetables, however; it takes tremendous amount of time and money just to pack them and to donate it. The owner of the HMC farms Harold McClarty said it on the show “Getting it into the hands of somebody to eat is isn’t free” and “it’s a lot easier and cheaper basically to throw it away”.
Work Cited
Bloom, Jonathan. “In United States, There’s a Lot of Food Being Wasted.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 19 June 2012. Web. 9 Sept. 2015. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/in-united-states-theres-a-lot-of-food-being-wasted/2012/06/19/gJQAmk9JoV_story.html>.
Oliver, John. “Food Waste.” Last Week Tonight. HBO, 17 July 2015. Television Show.
Summary 2
Tae-Seong Johnson
Professor Rafferty
ENGL 211c
9/23/2015
Food Waste from American Restaurants
In the first summary I have mentioned that food is being wasted at farms that produce fruits and vegetables. In this summary I will be summarizing an article that explains how restaurant businesses are squandering food across the United States. Food is literally being wasted everywhere, and many of us are not surprised to hear that restaurants waste food. And I deeply appreciate Nicole Rogers for her effort in writing “4 NEW RESTURANT RETHINK FOOD WASTE”, she has done an amazing job with her researching and gathering data from credible sources. Nicole have researched, “University of Arizona study estimated that the total amount of food loss per day in full-service restaurants in the U.S. was almost 50 million pounds. Over 85 million pounds were lost daily in U.S. fast food restaurants. This happens both before the food reaches our plates, and then when we don’t finish our meals or take home the leftovers to eat later.” Many times we think of leftover food if being wasted, but turns out many of the cook foods directly goes straight into dumpsters. Imagine every restaurants throwing out 150,000 pounds of food per year. Nicole’s research was very accurate, and has made me think about where else food waste is happening other than farms and restaurants.
Work Cited
Rogers, Nicole. “4 New Restaurants Rethink Food Waste.” Sustainable America. 16 July 2014. Web. 24 Sept. 2015. <http://www.sustainableamerica.org/blog/4-new-restaurants-rethink-food-waste/>.
Summary 3
Tae-Seong Johnson
Professor Rafferty
Eng211c
10/10/2015
Food Waste on Environmental Effect
The impact of food waste on the environment is tremendous. Many of us were not aware that food waste is one of the key reason why global warming was getting worse. “When wasted food is thrown away and breaks down in landfill, together with other organic materials, it becomes the main contributor to the generation of methane – a gas 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.” It also takes long period of time for food to decompose in landfill because of gas that it creates and naturally it is harder for any living organisms such as flies to or other bugs which helps decompositions of waste. “Food waste can also have a major impact on landfills, or rubbish tips, and how these sites affect the surrounding environment. The breakdown of food waste in landfill releases nutrients, which can migrate out of landfilled waste and into the surrounding environment. Too many nutrients can be a problem because they can pollute our groundwater and waterways.” It can pollute the underground water that can and will travel—miles underground, which means it can damage the soil in a large radius from landfill.
Work Cited
“Environmental Impacts.” – Love Food Hate Waste. Environment Protection Authority. Web. 13 Oct. 2015. <http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.nsw.gov.au/love-food/environmental-impacts.aspx>.
Summary 4
Tae-Seong Johnson
Professor Rafferty
Eng211c
10/21/2015
Examples Set by Foodbanks
Foodbanks is an organization that are most active of all. More waiting for food to be donated, the go for and receive their donations. “Essentially, Food Banking is about logistics: finding and rescuing nutritious food before it goes to waste and getting it to where it is needed…[And] This intervention can include produce from farms and processors, packaged goods from manufacturers and stores, and prepared foods from restaurants and hotels.” (Third paragraph) As I have mentioned that donating food from farmer’s perspective or restaurant owner’s perspective, it is difficult. To package food and shipping, cost more than just to throw them away, however; if there is any organizations like FoodBank who will pick the food up, then farm owners and restaurant owners will most likely donate their fresh and nutritious food. “Last year, food rescued by The Global FoodBanking Network (GFN) and network food banks kept more than 920 million pounds of food out of landfills and used it to feed hungry people.”(Third paragraph) FoodBank has save 920 million more pounds of food from producing methane gas, which can cause a devastation to our atmosphere.
Work Cited
Klein, Jeffrey. “Food Banking: A Humanitarian Solution to the Problems of Hunger and Food Waste.” World Food Day. The Global FoodBanking Network. Web. 13 Oct. 2015. <http://www.worldfooddayusa.org/food_banking_a_humanitarian_solution_to_the_problems_of_hunger_and_food_waste>.