Humans love food. The world consumes more than 11 million pounds of food every minute of every day. However, we don’t only consume enormous amounts of food, we also waste it. The average person wastes 20 pounds of food every month.

While almost all the world waste food. One country, in particular, wastes a lot of food. You guessed it: the United States. According to the Natural Resource Defense Council, the US throws away $160 billion worth of good food every year. That’s 40% of all the food the US produces.

These statistics are alarming when you consider that USDA estimates that 49 million people live in food-insecure homes. There are children in the US that go to bed hungry every night while tons of good food sits in landfills.

There are many negative consequences to food waste, that you probably didn't consider. We are wasting valuable labor and natural resources used to produce the food. Also, all that wasted food has to end up somewhere, and it will most likely end up in a landfill.

This creates a huge problem: the hyper release of methane gas as a byproduct of decomposition. When organic material decomposes in the absence of air, as it normally does in a landfill, it releases methane gas as a byproduct instead of CO2. Methane gas traps heat 20x more efficiently than CO2. Basically, the human population is 'crop dusting' itself in heat by wasting so much food.

One of the main reasons for so much wasting stems from our own habits as consumers. In PEG LEG FILM 's documentary Just Eat It they highlight the subconscious shopping habits of the average consumer. Market vendors explained how if their displays where over stocks then people were much more likely to buy their products compared to when their displays where sparsely stocked.

This is because humans usually assume the last option is the worst option. Consumers are more likely to buy produce that is heavily stocked.

The answer to this food wastage may seem simple: just donate it. Well donating food isn't as easy as it would seem.

Most companies and markets do not donate the food they do not want because it is much cheaper to throw it away. If a business wanted to donate food, they would have to package it, store it properly, coordinate deliveries, then transport it. This would dramatically cut into the profits of the most companies.

So we can't really blame companies for not donating more food, after all, their purpose is to make a profit. Businesses are not charities, therefore, they should be incentivized for their donating in the form of tax breaks.

There are laws set in place for large corporations to receive tax breaks for donating food.

In 2015, there was a fight to correct this. The "Fighting Hunger Incentive Act of 2015," which would set up permanent laws for small businesses to receive incentives and aid for donating passed in Congress. The problem started when the bill reached the Senate. The bill was stripped of all wording that would help small businesses donate food and replaced with wording relating to trading across state-lines. It was then renamed the "Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015."

So, the good news is a bill aimed at helping reduce food waste in the United States passed. It just happened to pass with a completely different name and completely different context.

So as of now, the solution fall to us: the average American. We all must do our part. One by one, trying our best not to waste food, but also by asking our politicans to take action to stop food waste.