What percentage of the food produced globally do you think goes to waste each year? Five percent? Ten percent? In fact, it is over 30%! That is 1.3 billion tons, most of it perfectly edible. Think about all the people starving in the world and then look at that figure again. It boils your blood, doesn't it? According to a United Nations report, if just 25% of that wasted food were saved, world hunger could be made a thing of the past.

The worst offenders when it comes to food waste are developed countries such as the United States. The chart below shows just how much of each food category is typically wasted. Wasting so much food doesn't just affect world hunger, either. Food waste is also a massive contributor to climate change. When food is discarded, much of it is taken to landfills, where it breaks down and releases methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas with 80 times the warming power of CO2. Then add to that the carbon footprint created by the production and transport of the food. In total, food waste contributes around 6% of all global greenhouse gas emissions.

Some food is wasted during the production process, often because of bad weather damaging crops or overproduction. But around 43% of all food waste happens at home. By simply changing our personal behavior—by buying more conscientiously or finding ways to use up leftovers—we could dramatically reduce this figure. All it takes is a few simple lifestyle changes, and we could have a real positive impact on both world hunger and climate change.

想想看，每年全球生產的食物中，有多少的比例會被浪費掉？5%？10%？事實上，答案是超過30%！這也就是13億公噸，而且其中大部分都還是可以食用的。想一想世界上那些食不果腹、忍飢挨餓的人，然後再看一看這個數字，真會讓你怒火中燒，對吧？聯合國的一份報告顯示，只要將這些遭到浪費的食物留住四分之一，全球飢餓問題就將不復存在。

以食物廢棄物（譯注：即廚餘、剩食）而言，罪魁禍首莫過於美國這些已開發國家。以下圖表顯示出，各類食物中通常會有多少遭到浪費。浪費這麼多食物不僅會影響世界的飢餓問題，食物浪費也是導致氣候變遷的一大元凶。食物遭丟棄後，大部分都會被運到垃圾掩埋場分解，而後釋放出甲烷。甲烷是一種溫室氣體，造成的溫室效應是二氧化碳的80倍。然後再加上用來生產與運輸這些食物所產生的碳足跡，最後總體來看，食物廢棄物約造成6%的全球溫室氣體排放量。

有些食物是在生產過程中遭到浪費，通常是因為農作物被惡劣的天候毀損，或是生產過剩，但是大約有43%的食物浪費是在家戶內發生的。只要改變我們的個人行為，例如更謹慎購物，或想辦法利用剩飯剩菜，即可大幅降低這個數字，只需稍加改變我們的生活方式，就能對全球飢餓問題與氣候變遷產生實質的正面影響。