America Throws Away Half of Its Edible Produce

New research suggests that fully one-half of the nation’s produce now probably ends up as garbage. This dismal nugget from the story pretty well summarizes the findings:

Vast quantities of fresh produce grown in the US are left in the field to rot, fed to livestock or hauled directly from the field to landfill, because of unrealistic and unyielding cosmetic standards, according to official data and interviews with dozens of farmers, packers, truckers, researchers, campaigners and government officials.

The story distinguishes waste that’s “downstream,” or ruined because it goes bad on a grocery shelf or sits forever in a fridge bin, from waste that’s “upstream.” The first kind supposedly accounts for $160 billion worth of produce every year — which isn’t hard to believe when you remember each American family single-handedly trashes $600 worth of food in that time frame — but factor in ugly produce left to rot in the field or rejected by grocery stores, and The Guardian estimates this figure quickly climbs to half of all of the fruits and vegetables the country grows.

Read more here.