American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It) by Jonathan Bloom - Essay Example

American Wasteland is a book by Jonathan Bloom which explains the problem of food waste in the country. The main intention of the writer is to educate people on the pervasiveness of food waste and how they can reduce it. The aim of the paper is to look at the book by Jonathan Bloom American Wasteland and seem ways in which we can do to reduce it. The paper will include a personal experience with food waste (Bloom, 67). At the moment, the problem of food waste is vital and needs to be resolved fast.

This is due top the adverse effects that are brought by the wasted food one of such effect is carbon emission and landfill usage (Beck-Fris, Pell, Sonesson, Jonsson, Kirchmann, 320). The loss of food in the American system occurs all through the supply chain (Hall, Guo, Dore and Chow, 7940). There is a loss that occurs in the farm, during processing, distribution and storage. The research done on the issue is still insufficient. This have hindered action from the stakeholders and also led to confusion on how much is really lost.

I will start by giving my personal experience on food wastage (Bloom, 68). I was shopping for food in one of the local stores early in a Saturday morning. At this time, there were very few people in the supermarket. This is the time that the supermarkets replenished their stocks and makes sure that their supply is sufficient and also in good condition. As I went to the meat section, I noted that the butcher was taking out some pieces of meat from the refrigerator and putting them into a waste basket where they were loaded into a cart.

The pieces of meat being loaded into the cart were pieces of pork, fillets, porterhouse steaks and other prime meat. I was really disturbed by these actions and asked him the reason why they could not donate them to the poor. The main reason was that the meat had passed the expiry date and could not stay in the shelves. The issue related to donating was not being done by the supermarkets as they feared being involved in any litigation. The butcher explained that previously, the supermarket used to donate their expiring foodstuff but stopped due to fear of being sued in case anyone got sick.

There was an argument that if any of those receiving the foodstuffs got sick, they might look for legal means to be compensated. At the same time, there were a lot of people who can not afford top go to the food stores and buy the foodstuffs (Cuellar & Webber, 6467). These are the Americans who are still languishing in poverty as we waste food into landfills. The statistics on poverty in the United States is still high which has been made even more severe by the economic crisis. At the moment 39.

8 million Americans are still in poverty which represents 13.2 percent of the population. This translates to 8.1 million families who are still in poverty in the country. The condition of poverty still persists in the country where food is going into waste. The irony of the situation is that more than 100 billion pounds of food goes to waste which is capable of feeding the hungry and eliminate the hunger. The waste from the supermarkets can be recycled and fed to those who are not in a position to buy the foodstuffs.

The main cause of the business people not donating the foodstuffs which are viable for consumption and goes to waste is due to fear of legal action. Some of the stores which used to donate food stuffs stopped to do so after being sued by the user of