Vivtor Belen Blog 3 food waste

Dear FDA,
        A huge issue around the world is food waste. Food waste has been a big issue for a very long time, and it is only getting worse. In this letter,  I am hoping to spread awareness of this issue.
       As many of us know here in the United States, food waste is huge here. Here in the United states, we waste about thirty percent of our food supply. This is such a large amount, considering that most of that wasted food is perfectly good food. In the United States, we have more than four times the amount of food that is necessary for our population. This is also the case for many other rich countries around the world. It is reasonable to have a larger food supply than what is needed, but here in the US, we just have too much. Having this much food available to the population means that people start to take advantage and waste a lot of it.  We need to stop wasting food because there are so many people in different countries who really need this food.
        Another huge contributor of food waste are grocery stores. Grocery stores carry huge amounts of food. Little do people know, a lot of the food you see in these stores often get thrown away if people don't but them in a reasonable amount of time. People who work at grocery stores are constantly restocking shelves with fresh foods. They work by the expiration dates on these foods. They put the ones that are closer to expiring up front so people would grab them first. But if the food is still there by the sell by date and is expired, they will simply remove them and restock with fresh food. The food that is expired gets thrown away. These foods are perfectly good and untouched. The expiration dates on most foods don't really mean much. The food can be good months after the sell by date. This type of food waste in grocery stores is the largest contributor of food waste in this country. People also do this in their homes when the date on their food passes. Like i mentioned earlier, more than thirty percent of food in this country is wasted.
      The united states need to spread awareness about the issue of food waste and do something about it because this issue is only getting worse with time. If we some how figured out a way to fix this issue, we would be able to fix the issue of food waste world wide.
                                                                                                         Sincerely,
                                                                                                         Victor Belen