Farmers and supermarkets consistently throw out perfectly good food because it isn't aesthetically pleasing enough. Many homeless people and those who are living underneath the poverty line in the USA ($22,000/year) don't have consistent access to food, but so much is being thrown out it's getting ridiculous. Most of the produce that is thrown out is good enough for a gourmet meal, but it still gets discarded because it won't sell as well. Roughly 50% of all produce produced in the USA per year is discarded, which is 60 million tons or 160 billion dollars worth of food. So what can we do? We could make a concious effort not to throw away food. Only order what you will eat, only take the portions you know you will eat and go back for seconds.

This is a great discussion post that I agree with completely. Often a lot of food is thrown away after a restaurant closes for the night, or the knobby carrot that no one chose is thrown away at supermarkets. I have witnessed food going to waste after someone hasn't finished it, and often, my family and I will package up our left-overs that we haven't touched, and bring it to homeless people around the city. I feel that restaurants could also contribute to feeding the homeless with leftovers by setting aside the food that was left over from the day and salvage the edible and "still good food" to cut down on buying and consuming excess food.

Did you know that baby carrots aren't actually grown and come out the ground like what they look like at stores? Shocker! those "baby carrots" are actually regular carrots that don't look as great as other carrots, and shaved down to our beloved "baby carrots". This is one of the many great approaches to salvaging produce that is still good. I feel that industries could sell their "ugly products" to other companies to use in canned f orm or, groceries can have separate sections for the  "ugly produce" to sell at a discounted price. These simple steps could save our environment and impact it for the better.

That's a great point! I didn't know that baby carrots were just regular carrots that have been cut down to look nicer to buy. That's really bad. Your efforts to help the community with your leftover food is great, by the way! I think one of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint, remain sustainable, and help the environment (and the community) is to be smart with your food and how much food you eat.

BABY CARROTS ARE BABIES!!! YOUR KILLING THE YOUNG

Great point! It's terrible to see grocery stores throw away bags filled with perfectly good food. Many times my family has tried to buy some of the food before they throw it out. I would really like to see grocery stores doing something else with the food.

It is also interesting that food can take a lot of CO2, goes to show how bad the fact that grocery stores throw out perfectly good food. Production farms even throw out disfigured foods that have nothing wrong with them. If we remove this habit, imagine how influential that could be!

This is definitely a big problem! National Geographic did a very interesting piece on this very issue a while back that was very interesting. Did you know that you can actually save money buying 'ugly' produce? There are some companies in the US that deliver 'ugly' produce as a subscription box, which is extremely convenient! One such company is Imperfect Produce: https://www.imperfectproduce.com/

I think that this is really interesting, i never heard before that good food was being thrown out based on looks. It is definitely important to be spreading more awareness about this in order to make the problem aware and create more solutions.
I think it would be great if there were more companies out there that collected 'ugly' food and redistributed it to people in need, in order to cut back on this planets food waste.

One bakery near my house has stopped selling ‘day old’ pastries and instead donated them to a local homeless shelter after closing each day! I wish there were more restaurants and cafes out there that followed a similar ethic with their food ‘waste’.

What if grocery stores had a separate section for the odd foods out?

I really like that idea! Maybe the odd produce could be kept near the bulk goods and could be marketed as a bargain. It might even end up being a hipster trend, to buy ugly produce!

That sounds like a great idea, since i know a lot of people who would choose to purchase based on price and quality, not look, If it was still the same food and taste.
Also, it is true that a lot of place choose to have discounts for 'damaged' merchandise, making selling odd food a great way to not only cut back on waste but to sell more of their product and make more money. It would be a win win for the environment, sellers, and consumers.

I agree! Far to much perfectly good food is wasted!

This food should be donated to shelters instead of thrown away.

I agree. If these perfectly good food are being thrown away just because they don't look the most aesthetically pleasing, these companies should find a way to use them and not throw them away. I think people should also be educated that these produce are perfectly fine and taste just the same as a good looking produce.

We have an imperfect produce program that is near where I live. I think they deliver the food to you from certain farms to use the produce that won't be sold at a grocery store. I think companies like these are one way to eliminate food waste.

I never knew that this was a thing, we should be more careful of how much food we are getting we go to shop. Just so we make sure that none is wasted and all that food should just be either sold or donated.

This is a big issue that people never talk about! Fixing this problem could really reduce the carbon emissions and greenhouse gases we produce.

I agree because we have to be resourceful

I definitely believe we can better the produce use by donating to Homeless shelters and other non-profit organizations that feed people, like the USO.