Your money-saving and sustainable food action:
Consume the Food You Buy !
Really! Food! It’s that simple – here’s why.
Eating most of the food you buy saves you money.
It certainly does! The less food you throw away, the less money you spend at the grocery store buying it. You spend less and you save more. Only 60% of food produced for the U.S. is actually eaten, (40% is not) so there is huge potential for saving money.
Eating most of the food you buy reduces pollution.
Here’s how. Every food item you buy uses fuel energy and resources to grow, harvest, truck, package, truck again, cook, refrigerate and has some pollution as a result in every step. For example, trucks burn diesel fuel. Fewer food delivery truck trips mean less truck exhaust pollution. Further, one way to produce electric power is by burning dirty coal. If we use less electric energy* (though less food production), dirty coal power-plant time is reduced, therefore reducing air pollution.
Consider all the fuel, resources and electricity used
to bring a plate of food to your table.
Eating most of the food you buy reduces fuel energy and resources consumed.
When you buy less food, you use less energy and resources. Food growing uses fuel, fertilizer, packaging plastic and paper, electricity for food processing machinery, cooking, refrigeration, garbage collection (if no composting). When food is thrown away, all these resources and energy have no benefit to anyone. Here’s a list of resources and fuel used for food production:
- resources for fertilizer production
- fuel for fertilizer transport
- tractor fuel for plowing and seeding
- electric energy to filter and pump water to the farm
- water to grow the crop
- fuel for harvesting tractor
- fuel to transport crops to processing
- electricity to process crops
- paper and plastic packaging resources
- transport fuel for plastic, tree and paper packaging products
- electrical energy for package printing
- transport fuel to grocery store
- electrical refrigeration energy (if needed)
- transport fuel for your car to and from the grocery store
- fuel or electricity for cooking
- electricity for refrigeration in the store or your home
- fuel for transporting garbage from the store or your home
- fuel for recycling transport
- if meat, add fuel for livestock feed transport, waste removal, methane management, animal transport.
* (note: some electric power is clean such as wind or solar, some is dirty such as coal.)
Want to know more?
Read more about reducing food waste here.
Eat all you the food you buy, TED talk video.
Making progress?
Let us know your successes here.
Sustain Times 