Reading. Wasting food: gist Read the text quickly and complete the paragraphs with the right headings. Adapted from CLF How did we start throwing out so much food? Well, several factors play into our increasing wastefulness. Here, we break down the components leading us to toss our food and offer solutions that can help solve our food waste problem. 1. Sell-by, best-by, use-by, best-before dates - you've seen each of these labels at the grocery store, but what do they all mean? If I buy an item on the sell-by date, when does it actually "go bad?" These labels confuse customers and lead many of us to throw away food prematurely. In fact, date label confusion accounts for about 7% of all consumer waste. If food retailers all used one label that clearly defined when a food product will go bad, there would be less confusion - and less food waste. 2. Over the past few decades, serving and container sizes ballooned - and not just at restaurants and fast-food joints, but in grocery stores and homes. In fact, between 1977 and 1996 in the US, hamburgers grew by 23%, soda sizes by 52%, and snacks by a whopping 60%. How did bigger portions become the norm? Some blame movie theaters. Wanting to increase profits, theater owners upped their popcorn sizes, with the hopes that customers would pay a bit more for bigger buckets of their favorite snack. Bigger isn't always better. Many food retailers serve such large portions that you can't eat a meal all in one sitting. And too often, the leftovers go uneaten at home, too. Restaurants and other food retailers can cut down on outrageously large serving and container sizes by way of portion control standards and scaling back food-packaging sizes. 3. Consumers expect their fruits and veggies in the perfect shape, size, and color. Because there's little retail market for "ugly" fruits and veggies, large quantities of produce are left to rot in fields, go straight from the field to a landfill, or end up as livestock feed. Just because a piece of produce looks funky doesn't mean it's bad. We need to rescue "ugly" produce before it goes to waste. That means setting up systems to donate unwanted fruits and veggies to organizations that help feed the hungry and food insecure. 4. While recent years have seen a rise in food waste tracking technology, it's not widely used by the food industry. Plus, the law doesn't require food retailers to track their waste. By tracking inventory and waste, food retailers save a lot of money, as they're no longer over-purchasing products or throwing as much away. All food retailers should adopt technology that allows them to track food inventory and food waste. If they find that they're over-purchasing an item - and throwing it away - they can adjust their restocking list. 5. In 2019, retailers like supermarkets wasted 10 million tons of food. Baked goods, produce, meat, and ready-made foods account for most of these losses. While grocery and other retail store executives view the waste as a sign of quality control - keeping stores overstocked with only the freshest food - it comes at a steep price. In unsold fruits and veggies alone, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that grocery stores lose around $$15 billion a year. That means food retailers must plan for demand by incorporating historical data into future decisions, adopt waste tracking technology, and shift the shopping experience to one that promotes better food management. 6. At one time or another, we've all forgotten about the celery in the back of the fridge. And when we do remember, the stalks end up in the trash can. That is unless you have a backyard composting bin or subscribe to a curbside organics recycling service. But while composting programs are on the rise, not everyone has access to them. Similarly, not all restaurants, grocery stores, and other food services and retailers have access to composting systems or food donation services. This causes them to throw away a combined total of about 23 million tons of food each year. We must strengthen food rescue systems. That means making donation services more accessible, having food and retail businesses partner with donation centers, and increasing capacity at these centers. Any food remaining should be recycled through composting. But first, our cities and towns must make food recycling accessible. And they can do that by investing in composting infrastructure.