“Clean your plate; there are children starving in China!”
Your parents’ old saying has become a cliche, but they were on the right track, even if we questioned their reasoning.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, a staggering one-third of the food produced in the world is wasted, rather than consumed. In North America, more than 20 percent of all meat is wasted. Some of that meat spoils before it can be distributed and some is damaged by bad handling, but more than half is simply wasted by restaurants, grocery stores and consumers.
What does that mean for Chicago? Based on data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about 8 billion pounds of edible meat is wasted each year in the United States — approximately 7.5 million chickens, cows and pigs in Chicago alone, gone.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Chicago Sun-Times
