Effects of Certain Personal Attributes on Food Waste

Abstract

With the increase of food supply and the improvement of production processes, the real value of certain food products has been steadily declining over the past decades, which is certainly a trend that has seriously transformed the moral value of food, its role in society and its associated personal attitudes. According to UN and FAO estimates, in 2016, 30-35% of our food was wasted. Food waste in households is also a special area of research in terms of their high wasting rate. While exploring the causes of high amounts of consumer waste, a research group has also correlated (with mathematical models) the gradual growth rate of food waste, the US obesity epidemic and the growing supply of cheaper food products (Hall et al. 2009). In our research, we examine certain personal aspects in case of specific (e.g. functional) foods as well. A significant decrease in food waste coming from households could be attained by controlling our attitudes. Food waste, consumption awareness, eating habits, food mileage, water footprint, sustainable eating, energy efficiency: these are all terms which have to have their meaning and importance taught to people, as they contain important – affecting the level of wasting – information. Therefore, we can see that food waste itself is one of the most serious, paradoxical and global modern issues which the developed world has identified, and is trying to decrease by using national and international interventions in order to limit food supply anomalies and environmental loads as much as possible. Understanding personal attributes more precisely might be a good practice for providing future solutions, as well.

Keywords

• food waste
• consumer attitude
• sustainable consumption