Greening Austin Daily

UT Researchers Find that the Amount of Food Wasted by Americans each Year Represents 2% of the Nation’s Annual Energy Consumption

8th October, 2010 - Posted by katherine - 3 Comments

This article on the research states that:

The amount of food wasted each year by Americans represents the energy equivalent of 350 million barrels of oil, or about 2 percent of the nation’s annual energy consumption, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Texas say it takes the equivalent of about 1.4 billion barrels of oil to produce, process, package, and transport a year’s worth of food in the United States – between 8 and 16 percent of the nation’s total energy consumption.

Sad that we are using so much energy to produce/package/transport food we don’t end up using!

3 Comments

Tom Linsky

October 8th, 2010 at 1:17 pm    

As a big anti-wasting-food person, I think this is important for people to know.

katherine

October 8th, 2010 at 1:48 pm    

I know! And crazy that the article also says that about 27 percent of food is wasted in the U.S. each year!

Tom Linsky

October 8th, 2010 at 5:27 pm    

Sadly I’m not surprised… It is good to have something to say now other than “there are starving people in the world,” which in my opinion is not effective in guilting people into not throwing away food.

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