Food. It's something we literally can't live without. I would like everyone to think about what they ate today. Now I would like you to think about how much you ate today. Did you eat all your food or did you end up throwing some of it away? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay These are questions that most people don't ask themselves every day. But why not us? Food is an integral part of life, the cream of the crop, the apple of our eye. If food is so important, why do we waste it? A few weeks ago I watched a documentary called Just Eat It. It's about a couple, Jen and Grant, who went on a quest to learn more about food waste. They did something that most people would consider disgusting. They spent 6 months eating only expired food and food people threw away. Sounds crazy, right? When Jen and Grant began their trip, they expected to be digging through dumpsters to find leftovers on people's plates. However, the amount of still edible food they found in the dumpsters was incredibly horrific. For example, Grant found this huge dumpster full of hummus. The crazy thing was that the hummus still had about 3 weeks left before it expired. This documentary really made me think about how much I was wasting food. It made me want to dig through the trash to see how much edible food I could find. I don't know if this is legal or not in North Carolina, maybe the house lawyers know? Now imagine walking to your car from the grocery store with three bags of groceries. Imagine dropping one of your bags off and leaving it there. This is equivalent to the amount of food we waste. According to a USDA study, Americans wasted 31% of the food produced in 2010. That's a total of $161 billion, more than Trump himself. However, food waste is not limited to the consumer. 30% of crops never even make it to the store. Farmers throw coins in order to make food more aesthetically pleasing. This is due to the mindset of people when purchasing products. We want our fruits and vegetables to be shiny and perfect. I admit it. I tend to avoid buying bruised apples and oddly shaped potatoes. But in reality, seemingly imperfect produce is still edible and delicious. For example, Intermarché, a grocery store in France, started selling strange products at 30% off. It was a successful campaign to raise awareness of food waste in France. I feel like a company like this could be successful in the US as well. Not only is food waste an economic problem, but it also has detrimental effects on the environment. One of the biggest problems with food waste is how it all ends up in landfills. When food decomposes, it produces methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas that captures 20 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon. It doesn't help that landfills also produce toxins that can leach into the water system. Additionally, the type of food we waste can have a huge effect on the environment. 33% of the food wasted by the average American is meat. Not only is the livestock industry already unsustainable, but meat is the most common food group.