Book Summary
The book begins by highlighting the magnitude of how much food Americans waste. The first line in the book is a claim that the amount of food wasted by Americans in a single day can fill the Rose Bowl stadium. According to the author, wasted food refers to food that has been rendered inedible through misuse or neglect. The book continues to catalogue how much of such food is wasted in America. The avenues with most proof of this wastage include school cafeterias, restaurant waste bins, and domestic refrigerators.
According to the book, Americans waste nearly half of their food in a day. This wastage occurs in various stages of food handling and not just through the food that is wasted at home. The book cites the food that is never harvested for not being good enough to comply with the size, shape, and other industry standards as an example.
There is also the food that is rejected by stores because it does not meet the stores’ standards. This food may be perfectly edible but be a little curled or not look fresh enough. The book also points to the massive amount of food that is discarded for being close to its expiry date.
The author continues by giving reasons as to why food wastage should be avoided. He also offers tips on how food wastage can be avoided. According to the author, some stores are already implementing some of these ideas. The correlation between hunger and food wastage is also discussed in the book. Towards the end of the book, the author focuses on solutions to this problem. These solutions involve governments, food producers, individuals, schools, and businesses.
Personal Response
This book is very successful in getting its message across. This is probably because the author did extensive research on the addressed issues. For instance, the author took a job at a grocery store for several months when doing his research. This form of firsthand experience with food wastage situations makes the author’s claims more credible. All the examples offered in the book are personal. This exempts the book from looking like a case study.
Instead, the book is more of a personal appeal to Americans to examine the facts and change their ways. All the accounts offered as examples in this book are first-hand. However, the author desists from making his assertions look like a witch hunting campaign. In addition, his subjects are given a chance to explain their actions.
Another appealing aspect of the book is how it focuses on a single subject without deviating. The subject addressed in this book is food wastage. Throughout the book, the author resists the urge to delve into other impertinent issues. For instance, there are deep political and social issues in this subject but the author chooses to remain focused on his subject.
This factor makes the author’s work very easy to synthesize. Moreover, the goal of the book becomes unmistakable. There are many instances when books are written with underlying motives. This book does not lean towards any political or financial factions.
This book depends on numerous statistics and research findings. It also offers solutions and recommendations in the same way. This makes the amount of empirical data included in this book quite overwhelming. These empirics are very important to the development and credibility of the story. However, after going through a few hundred pages of this book, these statistics begin to become distasteful. These statistics should have been more analyzed to make the book livelier.
Use of technology to combat food wastage is immensely prompted in this book. This is a good way of offering solutions to modern day problems. However, the author seems to go overboard with these suggestions. For example, the author says he looks forward to the day robots will be picking fruits.
He also suggests the use of sophisticated tags to monitor expiration dates of products. It would have seemed more realistic for the author to keep the recommendations in line with the present day technology. Moreover, application of high technology in the solutions to food wastage makes it look like a futuristic endeavor.
Many of the solutions offered in the book point towards what landfills, governments, institutions, and grocery stores need to do. These are large-scale food handlers and their efforts would make significant changes. However, the author does not offer tips to the people at the end of the food chain. Like in global warming reversal efforts, individual input is significant. The author fails to stress this important point when offering tips on how to reduce food wastage.
Conclusion
This book is a revelation when it comes to the impact of food wastage in the American society. The author is relentless in trying to influence a change in every reader. The book does not take any hard-line positions on the issue and this makes it palatable to any reader. The author covers this issue in its entirety complete with suggestions and recommendations. Although the book fails to completely cover some issues, its goal is very well laid out.