Humans continue to live in an era of incredible food waste

Let us begin with the following principle: “Energy is the only universal currency: One of its many forms must be transformed to do something.” Economies are only intricate systems set up to make these transformations, and all economically significant energy conversions have (often very undesirable) environmental impacts. Consequently, as far as the biosphere is concerned, the best anthropogenic energy conversions are those that never happen: No emission of gases (whether in greenhouse or acidifying), no generation of solid or liquid waste, without destruction of the ecosystem best way to do this was to convert energies with higher efficiency: without its widespread adoption (either in large diesel and jet engines, combined cycle gas turbines, light-emitting diodes, steel melting, or ammonia synthesis) would need to convert significantly more primary energy with all the related environmental impacts.

On the contrary, what then could be more wasteful, more undesirable, and more irrational than denying a large part of these conversion gains by losing? Yet precisely this continues to happen – and to indefensible high degrees – with all end uses of energy. Buildings consume about a fifth of all global energybut due to inadequate wall and ceiling insulation, single-pane windows and poor ventilation, they lose at least between a fifth and a third of this, compared to well-designed interior spaces. A typical SUV is now twice as massive as a common pre-SUV vehicle, and needs at least a third more energy to perform the same task.

The most offensive of these wasteful practices is our food production. The modern food system (from the energies embedded in the breeding of new varieties, the synthesis of fertilizers and other agrochemicals, and the manufacture of field machinery to the energy used in harvesting, transportation, processing , storage, sales and cooking) declares close to 20 percent of the world’s fuels and primary electricity– and we lose as much 40 percent of all food products. Some food waste is unavoidable. The prevalent food waste, however, is more than indefensible. It is, in many ways, criminal.

The fight is difficult for many reasons. First, there are many ways to waste food: from field losses to spoilage in storage, from perishable seasonal surpluses to maintain the “perfect” display in stores, from oversized portions when eating out the home to the decline of the home kitchen.

Second, food now travels very far before reaching consumers: The average distance that a typical food item travels is 1,500 to 2,500 km before being bought.

Third, remains too cheap in relation to other expenses. Despite recent increases in food prices, households spend only approx 11 percent of their disposable income on food (in 1960 it was about 20 percent). Spending on food outside the home (typically more wasteful than eating at home) is now more than half of that total. And finally, as consumers, we have an overwhelming choice of food available to us: just consider that the average American supermarket now carries more than 30,000 food products.

Our society apparently is quite content to waste 40 percent of the nearly 20 percent of all energy it spends on food. In 2025, unfortunately, this shocking level of waste will no longer receive attention. In fact, the situation will only get worse. As we continue to pour billions into the search for energy “solutions” – ranging from new nuclear reactors (even fusion!) to green hydrogen, all of which carry their environmental burdens – in 2025, we will continue to fail to address the enormous waste of food that took so much fuel and electricity to produce.