Thanks for this article! I'm with you on not being a fan of all you can eat buffets. Such spots definitely profited $ from my handful of visits, as excess intake of low-to-medium quality food isn't my cuppa tea. This is true, in part, because of my registered dietitian (RD) credential. Also, I eat slowly. Thanks for presenting the case on how America has "cheapened" food in many ways, with much broader consequences. :(
I've been thinking a lot about the food waste problem in the US over the last few years, and it seems that we are just straight up producing too much food. As you said, we produce 4,000 calories for every person. Nobody outside of the most active athletes ever needs 4,000 calories of food each day, so it is inevitable that a ton of what we're producing will go to waste. People say that we haven't "solved hunger," but only about 2% of Americans are underweight (and the vast majority of the people making up that group are likely purposely so, not because of a lack of access to food); we have indeed made it so everyone in the country is well fed. Food waste continues to be excessive, and we act like it's a logistics problem, but it's a problem of us producing more food than we could ever eat. We need to produce less. And with less production, that's when more of a focus on quality is likely to come back at scale.
Thanks for this article! I'm with you on not being a fan of all you can eat buffets. Such spots definitely profited $ from my handful of visits, as excess intake of low-to-medium quality food isn't my cuppa tea. This is true, in part, because of my registered dietitian (RD) credential. Also, I eat slowly. Thanks for presenting the case on how America has "cheapened" food in many ways, with much broader consequences. :(
Thanks for your thoughtful posts. I am looking forward to hearing you speak at FNCE.
I've been thinking a lot about the food waste problem in the US over the last few years, and it seems that we are just straight up producing too much food. As you said, we produce 4,000 calories for every person. Nobody outside of the most active athletes ever needs 4,000 calories of food each day, so it is inevitable that a ton of what we're producing will go to waste. People say that we haven't "solved hunger," but only about 2% of Americans are underweight (and the vast majority of the people making up that group are likely purposely so, not because of a lack of access to food); we have indeed made it so everyone in the country is well fed. Food waste continues to be excessive, and we act like it's a logistics problem, but it's a problem of us producing more food than we could ever eat. We need to produce less. And with less production, that's when more of a focus on quality is likely to come back at scale.