Relationship between food waste, diet quality, and environmental sustainability in US

Nov 22, 2018
Sébastien Bouley

This study was performed in USA in order to better understand the relationship between diet quality and environmental impact including the food waste. The authors examined the relationship between food waste, diet quality, nutrient waste, and multiple measures of sustainability: use of cropland, irrigation water, pesticides, and fertilizers. The diet quality was assessed using the Healthy Eating Index-2015. A biophysical simulation model was used to estimate the amount of cropland associated with wasted food. It has been shown that US consumers wasted 422g of food per person daily, with 30 million acres of cropland used to produce this food every year. This accounts for 30% of daily calories available for consumption, one-quarter of daily food (by weight) available for consumption, and 7% of annual cropland acreage. Higher quality diets were associated with greater amounts of food waste and greater amounts of wasted irrigation water and pesticides, but less cropland waste.

These results suggest that simultaneous efforts to improve diet quality and reduce food waste are necessary.

To know more about the study, you can read the full article.

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