Throughout history, major societal changes have been brought on by those youthful and educated. Movements for the rights of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community and for civil rights are two of the most notable in Americas recent history (Hall, 206; Carson, 999; Harlin, 20). They were not enacted by those who were old and had grown up their entire lives with those ideals; they were initiated by the youth of our country not being satisfied with their treatment (Hoskins, 207). In their dedication to make these changes, they were able to change so many peoples minds regarding their views of people of differing races and sexual orientations and educated newer generations about these issues and their importance so that they could persist further. The best hope that we have as a country to combat food waste is to do our part to educate the youth of today about this daily problem that they themselves are contributing to.
Food waste is a monumental problem that is currently is currently afflicting our nation. Paratore (204) stated that 40% of all of our food is wasted. If that percentage could be reduced by even %, there would be over $2 million worth of food that would be saved; this saved food could then potentially go to more worthy causes, like the feeding of our nations homeless population. By volume, the quantity of food waste at the individual level is larger than corporation level losses
for all food categories, except for fats and oils (Buzby, Wells, & Aulakh, 204). The amount of resources devoted to growing produce and raising livestock is staggering. To produce just one pound of beef, an approximate ,847 gallons of water must be used (Hoekstra & Heek, 207). Collectively, agriculture uses 70% of available fresh water, 33% of available land, and 30% of global energy (Pearson, Stone, & King, 209). Over 33,099 cows were slaughtered in 208, and since it takes approximately 8 hours of labor to raise one cow, over 263,792 hours are spent raising and slaughtering these animals. The amount of time, effort, and money dedicated to doing this is essentially wasted on the estimated 3 billion pounds of red meat that is thrown out annually by consumers. In comparison, industrial food loss only accounts for 3 billion pounds of red meat loss yearly. The statistics for most other food groups are not significantly better, some even being significantly worse than those for red meat. Over 25.2 billion pounds of vegetables are wasted annually, with 8.2 of that being attributed to consumers, and over 25.4 billion pounds of dairy products are lost, with 6.2 of that because of individuals (USDA, 209a). As a collective, we are consistently wasting gargantuan amounts of food, a majority of which is fine to consume, just upon the bases of reasons like less-attractive-than-average appearance and misleading sell-by dates.