The Dr. Hyman Show - How Much Is Your Food Waste Costing You?

Episode Date: December 27, 2019

Food waste is one of the largest problems of our time. In fact, about 30% of all food produced globally (1.3 billion tons) is wasted—and it’s costing us. Food waste is also a major contributor to climate change; if food waste was represented as its own country it would be the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter! In this minisode, Dr. Hyman dives into this topic and what we can do about it in our own homes with Kavita Shukla and Paul Hawken. Kavita Shukla is the Founder and CEO of The FRESHGLOW Co. and the inventor of FreshPaper, a simple innovation taking on the massive global challenge of food waste by keeping food fresher, longer. FreshPaper is used by farmers and families across the globe, and The FRESHGLOW Co. has partnered with some of the largest retailers in the world, from Whole Foods to Walmart so that people everywhere can take advantage of this incredible product and the goodness of real food. Paul Hawken is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, and activist who has dedicated his life to environmental sustainability and changing the relationship between business and the environment. He is Executive Director of Project Drawdown, a non-profit dedicated to researching when and how global warming can be reversed. His book, Drawdown, outlines the most comprehensive plan to reverse global warming. Tune-in to Dr. Hyman’s full-length conversation with Kavita Shukla: DrMarkHyman.lnk.to/KavitaShukla Tune-in to Dr. Hyman’s full-length conversation with Paul Hawken: https://DrMarkHyman.lnk.to/PaulHawken

Coming up on this mini episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Research has even shown that just being aware of food waste, that's why advocacy is such a big part of our work, just being aware of the fact that food waste is a challenge can make people start to reduce their own food waste in their homes. Hi, I'm Kea Perot at one of the producers of The Doctor's Pharmacy podcast. Food waste is one of the largest problems of our time. In the U.S. alone, we waste upwards of 40% of our food, an amount that if

recovered and redistributed could feed 190 million adults. In this mini episode, Dr. Hyman talks about this problem and the ways it is being addressed with Kavita Shukla and Paul Hawken. Kavita is the creator of Fresh Paper, a simple innovation taking on the massive global challenge of food waste by keeping food fresher longer. Paul Hawken is executive director of Project Drawdown, a nonprofit dedicated to researching when and how global warming can be reversed. Food waste is a big problem. We, based on estimates, anywhere from a third to half of our food is wasted. In other words, we grow food, we put food in supermarkets. We try to distribute food.

And half of it ends up in landfills or worse. We actually waste six billion pounds of food at the farm because food is not perfect. Six billion pounds are thrown away every year in America at the grocery store. And it's because they're ugly, ugly food. It's a misshapen apple or a funny looking watermelon or something just doesn't get into the shelves. Talk about why food waste is such a problem. Like, who cares?

It goes in the landfill. You know, it goes back to nature. Like, why is it an issue? Yeah, well, you know, one of the things that I was surprised to hear is that the average American family actually loses over $1,500 worth of food that's just wasted. So when you first think about just the fact that people are saying it's difficult for them to be able to afford a fresh, healthy diet, food waste is one of the key pillars of that.

Because if you can reduce waste, you're suddenly able to stretch your dollars. And if you're living paycheck to paycheck, you may feel like it's a good economic decision to buy something in a box or to go buy fast food just for calories per dollar. But if you think about being able to extend the shelf life of fresh produce, it suddenly becomes more affordable. But then when you think about the planet, when you think about the amount of land, water, energy, and labor that goes into creating a single apple and getting that to your grocery store. So it's not just harvesting that apple, but then putting it on a truck, putting it through cold chain storage system, and then getting it to your grocery store shelf. The amount of energy we use, too.

Yeah. It's incredible. And they say that food waste is one of the biggest sources of carbon emissions. But what I have found really exciting and encouraging when you look at this discouraging problem is that even really simple and small interventions like cutting your own personal food waste, just like we started to do recycling and composting, can have a big impact. Just because there are so many inputs into creating produce that eventually is just thrown away to the landfill. Because, you know, I was shocked to learn that we actually grow enough food to feed every single person on the planet, but over 800 million people go hungry every single day.

And we lose, in some parts of the world, over 50%, 60% of our world's food simply because of inefficiencies in how we're storing it, producing it, and getting it from farm to fork. So even though it can be really discouraging, I remember when I first learned the magnitude of the problem, I thought, oh, that's really depressing. How can somebody like me, how can a team like ours even think about addressing this challenge? But what I found really inspiring was that this is one of those global challenges that every single person can actually do something about. And even doing something simple has a big impact because you

do have to think about all the land, water, energy, and human labor that went into every single fresh food item in your fridge. And when you start to think about it that way, I think it's inspiring to see that people make small changes in their behavior. And research has even shown that just being aware of food waste, that's why advocacy is such a big part of our work. Just being aware of the fact that food waste is a challenge can make people start to reduce their own food waste in their homes. But there's another problem with food waste. It also contributes was, was when we throw it out, it goes into the landfills. What happens then? Yeah. So when food waste goes into the landfills, it's an enormous drain on all of our systems. It's, you know, I think probably one of the most significant things we can do, even if we do have

to waste food, is, as you were saying, to start to compost. Because it's an enormous drain on all of our resources. And then at that point, you know, the food waste in the landfill is contributing to what is already an overcrowded and very inefficient system. And you're taking essentially organic matter, which could biodegrade, which could be feeding worms or being used in another way to actually positively impact the planet and just putting it into. And it also kind of rots and that off gases, you know, methane and other gases that are a huge contributor to climate change. Exactly. It's it's not something that people think about, but it's I feel like no food waste should ever be sent away. And the other thing it solves is his argument that big agriculture has, which is, well, yeah, there are problems with industrial agriculture. And yeah, we do use pesticides.

We do use GMO. We do use forms of agriculture that deplete the soil and deplete our water supplies. But we have to do this because we have to feed the world. There's 800 million people hungry. They're not getting enough food. We have a growing population. There's 7 billion. We're going to 9 billion.

Like we need big ag to solve this problem. And in a way, fixing the food waste will provide more than enough food for everybody on the planet. And we don't need industrial agriculture for that. And it's a simple solution. It's something every single one of us can do at home. You know, we can solve this challenge that I think is really built up as this monstrous challenge that only really large corporations can solve with very sophisticated and complicated technologies. Now, actually, just as you said, we could start to take that on by just reducing food waste in our own homes. Yeah. I think there's three cool solutions. One is fresh paper. And then if you don't know what to do with the food, you use the Google search and put in all the ingredients in your fridge. So you can put whatever vegetables or fruit you have in your fridge and whatever if you don't know what to do with the food you use the google search and put in all the ingredients in your fridge so you can put whatever vegetables or fruit you have in your

fridge and whatever ingredients you have and it comes up with recipes i love that you can use it yeah and then the third thing is whatever you don't end up using you can compost exactly and these are all solutions that individuals can make that have an impact globally that that is far more powerful than they think and i think it's the small acts that make a big difference yeah in poor countries poor people don't waste food but i mean they can't afford to yeah but on their farms they can't get food to market it spoils they don't have cold chains they don't have the support you know to actually preserve and protect the food yeah and so they lose a lot to and they lose it to insects they lose it to mice you know they lose it to vermin they lose it uh in transport and so and those

are only the front end inputs you're talking about but on the back end inputs when it goes into landfills it ferments and it breaks down and it releases methane which is far more powerful in terms of affecting climate carbon dioxide waste was the number three solution, but we didn't measure the methanogenesis from landfill food because we don't have the data. We know it's 28 to 34 times more powerful than CO2 in terms of CO2 equivalents. There are companies out there that are innovating. Imperfect Produce is a guy who literally goes to the farm, buys all the ugly food, and sells it direct to consumer. Water Mountain Water beautiful hydrating uh low sugar electrolyte drink that

is made from misshapen or blanched or ugly watermelons 800 million pounds of these watermelons were getting thrown out and now they're made into this delicious drink so there's there's people who are innovating around the margins on this yeah there's a lot of startups in this space now and i i went to uh this amazing dinner at Blue Hill where it was during a food conference for the New York Times and Dan Barber created this meal of scraps. It was all the garbage that you throw in the garbage,

like your potato peels and your carrot peels and all the ends of everything. I mean, he made the most unbelievable gourmet meal and it's like, wait a minute, maybe we should be making soup stock. Maybe we should be not throwing stuff away. So on an individual level, there's a lot of things we actually can do.

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And then that sort of leads into the composting, which is another solution. I think Denmark, for 25 years, has not allowed any food waste to be going into the garbage. And you just can't do it. And they have huge amounts of composting.

San Francisco recently did the same thing. So if you have the right political will and the leader, you can actually start to make these changes. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you don't want to throw food away if possible, but if it goes away, and that can be the peelings or the scraps that you actually don't eat, absolutely. They should never go to landfill.

They should be diverted and composted. And if you don't put it back to the land, the land doesn't thrive. If food waste was represented as its own country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter. That's the bad news. The good news is that there are so many things we can do to turn around the issue of food waste and the way it impacts our climate and food security. Becoming a conscious consumer, donating to your local food bank, composting, and growing your own food are all ways to lessen the impact from your own family. Dr. Hyman also recommends buying only

what you need to avoid throwing out massive amounts of food at home. We have the ability to reduce food waste starting in our own kitchens. Thanks for tuning in to this mini episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. If you enjoyed this conversation, please consider sharing it with a friend. Until next time!