The Fats and Food Waste

Over a 40-year period between 1880 and 1920, America had men’s clubs that consisted of men that the El Paso Daily Times called ‘The Fats.’ Members had to be a minimum of 200 pounds to join their local eating fraternity. They drank, ate, played baseball, and fought. It all ended when, around 1920, doctors and insurance companies began to warn about the effects of obesity. Today, 200 pounds is only 4 pounds over the average male weight in the U.S.

On average, Americans eat about 5.5 pounds of food per day (or about one ton per year) while the average person in the world eats three to five pounds per day. Another way of looking at this is that in North America, the average person eats 3,663 kilocalories per day while in Africa, they eat 2,624 kilocalories per day, i.e.,. we eat 40 percent more than the average African. 

It’s not just that we eat a lot, we waste a lot more food than anyone else. The world wastes1.4 billion tons of food every year and we waste 30-40 percent of that. For us, that’s the equivalent of wasting 219 pounds of food per person per year. 

Currently 690 to 820 million people around the world suffer at one time or another from food insecurity (i.e., they get hungry without a way to eat). Let’s suppose we could cut our food waste in half 245 million pounds.

Although not typically measured this way, imagine that food insecurity could be eliminated if people only had available 3 pounds per day. I’m not talking about the nutritional sufficiency of the food, just pounds. They would only need just over 1,000 pounds per year to not be hungry (about half of what the average American eats. 

Now let’s suppose that they only average two thirds of what they need (about 730 pounds) so that they are short 270 pounds in a year (.74 pounds). That means that if we cut our waste by 50%, we could bring over 900,000 people in the world up to a food secure state. Suppose they only need .5 pounds per day extra. In that case, again, if we cut our food waste by half, we could bring over 1.3 million people into a food secure state.

What can or should we do about this? For a start, we could stop eating so much but what’s fun about that? On the other hand, we could eat more – every time a packaged food gets close to its expiration date, we could eat it. Actually, we throw out food that isn’t spoiled. The “use by” and “sell by” dates are not necessarily the date when the food goes bad. For another, we could figure out what kids will actually eat in cafeteria’s (not baked beans or sweet potato fries) to reduce the 530,000 tons of annual food waste in schools

But rather than not throwing out food gone bad, or eating less or messing around with fussy kids, let’s go to the technology. Here’s something cool that is almost here - nano sized sensors in food packaging that can detect pathogens or specific gases when a product is spoiled. 

Another new technology may also prevent foods, even fruits and vegetables consumed raw, from spoiling so quickly. A company called mori has developed a protective layer made from silk proteins that you wash onto fruits, vegetables and any foods containing water. This means foods don’t spoil as easily, retain water and slow microbial growth. 

Finally, let’s start looking into those 3D printers that only print what you plan to eat and can print an individual meal for each member of the family at home or in a restaurant.

There is also new technology coming to help our modern day versions of ‘The Fats’ but meanwhile, let’s continue to work on food waste.