Feb 27, 2024
If people knew how much food they threw away each week, would they change their food-wasting ways? That's a question scientists explore in the 2023 State of Food Waste in America report. The research goal was to understand why and how households waste food, and what would motivate them to prevent food waste. In today's podcast, we'll talk with MITRE scientists Laura Leets and Grace Mika, members of a team who developed and launched the MITRE Food Waste Tracker app. This is a first of its kind app for households to log information about discarded food and learn ways to save money by reducing food waste. The Food Waste in America study team includes the Gallup Survey Company, researchers from the Ohio State University, the Harvard Law and Policy Clinic, ReFED, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the World Wildlife Fund.
Interview Summary
Laura, let's begin with you. Can you give us a quick overview of
why MITRE focused on measuring food waste at the household level
and the behaviors?
Laura - In a general sense, Norbert, we know the United States
waste 30 to 40% of our food, yet we do not know how much is wasted
at the household level. We know that waste occurs along the entire
farm to table supply chain, like approximately 15% with farms, 15%
at manufacturing, about 20% at stores and restaurants and about 50%
in the household. So, given that half the waste happens at the
household level, it's important to measure it. If you can measure
it, you can do something about it. Up to this point, people have
not had an easy way to estimate their amount of food waste. So, to
address this gap, not only did we develop a new way to measure
household food waste and Grace will share more about that, but we
also provided a baseline measurement of American household food
waste.
I would like to really dig in a little bit more. How much
food do American households waste, and do you have a sense of what
kinds of foods people are wasting?
Laura - Let me start with the amount first. We found that the
average American household wastes somewhere from 3 to 4.5 pounds
per week. And there's two ways to measure household food waste. The
first is you can focus on the edible or uneaten food. And with this
measure, American households waste about on average three pounds
per week. Second, you can add inedible food. So, that's your food
scraps, your eggshells. And if you take edible plus inedible food
together, then the American households wastes on average about 4.5
pounds per week. Let me give your listeners a couple analogies to
understand that impact of that 3 to 4.5 pounds of household food
waste. So, let's say we combine our own household food waste with
everyone else's. The crop waste is large enough to cover the states
of California and New York. From a personal perspective, imagine
before every meal you scrape off 40% of the food on your plate. If
you imagine that in each meal, you're going to start to understand
that the current food waste is massive, and we're all contributing
to it. So that's the measurement piece. I'm going to pass it over
to Grace to discuss the types of food we're wasting.
Grace - Americans are wasting a wide variety of foods in their
homes, but the number one wasted food type is your fresh produce.
So, that would be your fruits and your vegetables.
I think this is really important to keep in mind, not only
because, of course, fruits and vegetables are perishable, but when
we think about healthy diets, many people in the nutrition space
are encouraging fresh fruits and vegetables or fruits and
vegetables in general. Ao this is a really important finding, and
I'm excited to know this. But it's also important for our listeners
to think a little bit more about this. Grace, I would like to learn
a little bit more from you. Can you tell us more about the MITRE
Food Waste Tracker, the app itself?
Grace - I would be happy to. The MITRE Food Waste Tracker app is
meant to be a tool for households who want to understand exactly
what's going uneaten in their home. If you had asked me what
exactly I ate yesterday and how much of that went into my trash
can, I would have a really difficult time remembering an answer to
that question. And that's for just yesterday, let alone multiple
days or weeks ago. Not knowing what exactly goes uneaten would make
it really challenging for me to cut back on that waste. So, to
solve that problem, our team designed an app which allows for food
waste to be logged in real-time. So, right as you're doing your
meal prep or you're clearing off the dinner dishes or emptying your
leftovers out from the fridge. And the app tracks details both
about the food itself, like where you got that from and the food
group that it belongs to, as well as where, why, and how the food
was thrown away.
And you can also track how much waste was produced, and we encourage you to use your hand as a guide to estimate the volume of that waste. So, your closed fist is about the size of a cup of food and your thumb about the size of a tablespoon. The more that you use the app to track, the more you will reveal patterns in the way that you waste. Maybe you find out that you're optimistically shopping for vegetables that your toddlers at home are just not interested in eating. Or maybe you're serving up heaping platefuls at dinner time, but then find that you're not hungry to finish that meal. So learning this will empower you to make small changes in the way that you shop for, prepare and store food to make sure that as little as possible is going to waste.
And if you're money-minded like many Americans are, you might be
especially interested in an app feature which estimates the cost
savings that you would experience if you cut back on your waste. So
less food in the trash means more money in your wallet and the
savings really add up. The average American family spends over
$1,500 on wasted food each year. And tracking with the app is fast
and simple. For each food that you dispose, you would simply click
on the icons that best describe your waste. It would be really easy
to get the whole family, even your your kids involved in tracking
and thinking about the food that's going into the bin.
You've already touched on a few of these key findings about
sort of the top foods that we end up wasting. Are there other
findings that you would like to share with us?
Grace - So there are two behaviors that really stood out when it
came to producing food waste. The first is simply being willing to
eat your leftovers. Personally, I get really excited about leftover
nights. It means I get a good home cooked meal with almost no prep
work that evening. A lot of us are already doing this. About a
third of Americans incorporate leftovers into new dishes and about
half of us frequently eat leftovers just as a meal by themselves.
Those leftovers add up. We found that households who consistently
throw their leftovers away are wasting nearly four times as much as
households that eat those up. We also found that households'
understanding of and behavior around date labels plays a
significant role in their levels of waste. A lot of us don't really
understand how little date labels actually mean, and how little
they're standardized. Not too long ago I was cooking with a friend,
and we were making dinner together and he smelled a bag of shredded
cheese and he said, "Oh, this smells kind of funky, but it's not
past his date." And he added it into the dish. You should actually
be doing the exact opposite of that. You should trust your senses
over the date label when it seems that something is spoiling. There
are some dates that are meant to be safety indications, but the
majority are just a manufacturer's best guess of when food will
pass its peak quality. And frequently, thrown away past date food
that has no signs of spoilage so this leads to wasting over twice
as much food. It can be easy to feel helpless when it comes to
wasting food, but it's surprisingly simple to take control over
your waste As we mentioned before, if you're curious about what
sorts of behaviors are leading to waste in your own home, we have
an app for that. So, our latest version of the app has new features
to help you understand your waste and even get a sense of how much
money you could be saving if you cut back on your waste in your
home. I highly encourage you to check that out.
I’ve got to say I have done some work on date labels and
have found this is an important area of consideration. But also,
one where the modification of those date labels may actually help
reduce food waste. I'm so happy to hear you talk about the sort of
broader set of things that consumers can do to actually mitigate
food waste in the household. You got into some of my own personal
family issues around what do we do about leftovers, and I will not
report this conversation to my family. So, thank you for that,
Grace. Laura, I want to go back to you and ask about a big picture
question. Why should our listeners reduce their household food
waste?
Laura - Norbert, I believe I can make a compelling case for that.
This is a rare opportunity when making a small change can have a
large positive impact. Let me explain the amazing cascading ripple
effect that happens when we reduce our household food waste. We had
Grace reminding us with the app, and the first benefit is
financial. An average American household can save at least $1,500 a
year or $125 a month by reducing food waste. So just focus on that
personal financial benefit, and then understand the resulting
ripple effects. That first ripple effect is going to impact the
ecology. Most of us don't realize significant resources go into
producing food. The USDA reminds us that 50% of our land in America
is used for food production and 80% of our water is used to produce
that food. When we reduce our food waste, we're recognizing food as
this precious resource, and we are supporting our food production
industry. This is really important because America is one of the
top food producers in the world.
The next ripple effect impacts food security. Food security is part
of national security. When you reduce your household food waste,
you are also supporting national security. Next is a societal
impact. Reducing food waste allows us to optimize our food and feed
more people. And, finally, there is a significant environmental
benefit. The number one substance going into our landfills is food
waste. As it decomposes, it emits greenhouse gases that cause this
pollution blanket to surround the planet. That pollution blanket
traps heat and warms the planet. So, when we reduce our food waste,
it's one of the top three activities we can do to reduce warming
temperatures and extreme weather events. We all have the ability to
combat climate change through our household food waste. These small
changes in our food waste - they're going to result in positive
financial, societal, and environmental benefits. It's such a
powerful, impactful decision to reassess your food waste and think
about ways you can reduce it.
Bios
Dr. Laura Leets is an accomplished researcher, teacher, and mentor. She brings 30 years of experience from academic and industry environments. She currently serves as an innovation lead and senior principal scientist at MITRE. In this leadership capacity, she works with researchers to identify, shape and conduct important, transformative, and impactful projects for government sponsors and the nation. She also serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture, and Technology Program and previously spent a decade as a Professor of Communication at Stanford University. She has been recognized with several top paper and teaching awards throughout her academic career.
Grace Mika, B.S., is a data scientist in MITRE’s Modeling & Analysis Innovation Center, where she has worked on projects for the Center of Disease Control, Internal Revenue Service, Veterans Benefits Association, and the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense, Acquisitions & Sustainment. She is passionate about visualizing data in a clear, accurate, and accessible way. Grace was instrumental in the design of a first-of-its-kind Food Waste Tracker App, which allows users to track waste as it occurs within their homes. Grace holds a B.S. in Applied Math and Psychology from the College of William & Mary and is currently working towards her Masters of Analytics at Georgia Institute of Technology.