Recently, I learned that most grocery stores throw away 20-40% of food they receive from farms for cosmetic reasons. The food is perfectly edible; it's just too ugly to offer to customers. I understand that they are relying on their customers for profit and must cater to them because of that, but wasting food like that isn't good for environment- plus all that food can go to homeless people.

This information came from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions … be1b1a6785

This, as you said, is true, but there are beginning to be some grocery stores that sell the "unwanted" produce.  People are trying to make a movement to eat and serve the "ugly" food. This helps to keep some food from going to the trash rather than to someone who needs it. This trend, I hope, lasts for a while, and if we can get out of the mentality of "unattractive" food being inferior to their prettier siblings, it can help a lot.

Sources:
http://time.com/3761942/why-people-are- … ugly-food/
http://www.science20.com/the_conversati … nds-154184

Wow, I am surprised - that is a huge percentage of food to be throwing away. According to an article I read, grocery stores often also overstock and have to throw the extras away. I think that in first-world countries consumers expect to have "perfect" food, even though this cannot always happen. I like your idea of donating food to the homeless, but I think customers should not be so picky too, so the grocery stores don't feel obligated to have to give them away.
Article: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-groc … od-2014-10

So this is something that I never knew. I agree with Beth that it is not all just the grocery stores doing, the grocery stores are just trying to meet their customers expectations, and most customers do not want to cook with unappetizing looking vegetables. I think that our communities need to make a change in how they view bruised or unappetizing produce. For example if you decide to make tomato soup it does not matter what the tomatoes first looked like. Giving away unappetizing produce to the homeless is another alternative that does not require you to change you cooking habits but still helps our communities.

I agree that grocery stores should not feel the need to throw perfectly good food away. If it is in good condition they should donate the food to someone that cannot afford it. There are several other people in the world who cannot have a sufficient amount of food to eat, much less something that "looks good". I wanted to add another point in that grocery stores throw out food that is past expiration date, or because the food is close to the expiration date. It seems understandable, right? We all throw out food once it "turns bad". Actually, according to https://www.moveforhunger.org/grocery-s … od-waste/, food past expiration date is not completely worthless. It is not wholly "unsafe" to eat, and there is no need to just toss it. There are several companies who are looking to reclaim food that is past the sell-by date.

I partially agree. Yes the grocery stores are partially blamed but the majority is us (the customers) According to http://www.businessinsider.com/why-groc … od-2014-10    Every year, America throws away 1/3 of it's food it produces (133 billion pounds of food). We need to stop this massive amount of food waste because, 1 in 9 people go to bed hungry each night. Here in America we have so much food, we are so blessed to actually have everything but yet, we waste so much. First of all, groceries need to stop over-stocking displays to make it look nice. And they do it for the costumers. Also, just because an apple isn't the right shape or size doesn't mean it's not good quality. Well, most groceries take the food and it's the customers to blame. They wouldn't throw it out if we, bought it... We are so picky with our food so, all the imperfect food is left, forcing groceries to make it go to waste. For example, a huge amount of food waste c ould be decreased if more Americans were willing to buy bananas with more brown spots or, if they understood they can eat yogurt 2 weeks passed its sell - by date.

grocery stores are doing what they need to do to stay open

Yeah, I agree, the grocery stores have too much need for profit, and even the customers, they need to have good looking food, they don't realize that you can eat things past its "sell by" date, and also, if you have extra food at home, you can just freeze it, and it can still be edible past it's expiry date.