Nutrition in the Bin: A Nutritional and Environmental Assessment of Food Wasted in the UK

Abstract

The UK currently has the most detailed, directly measured data for food wasted in the home. This includes information on the exact types of food wasted. These data allow calculation of the nutrients within that waste, as well as its environmental impact. The results progress the conversation beyond how much food is wasted or its energy content; it permits the implications for nutrition and sustainability to be assessed in detail. Data for UK household food waste were expressed as an average waste per capita for each type of food. Each food type was matched with an item (or group of items) from the UK Composition of Foods (7th Ed). The level of nutrients wasted was compared to UK Reference Nutrient Intakes (RNIs) for adult women (19–50 years, used as a proxy for general population requirements). The data were normalized into “nutrient days” wasted per capita per year, then into the number of complete diet days (for 21 nutrients plus energy). Results show that approximately 42 daily diets were discarded per capita per year. By individual nutrient, the highest losses were vitamin B12, vitamin C, and thiamin (160, 140, and 130 nutrient days/capita/year, respectively). For protein, dietary energy and carbohydrates, 88, 59, and 53 nutrient days/capita/year, respectively, were lost. Substantial losses were also found for under-consumed nutrients in the UK: calcium, which was mostly lost via bakery (27%) and dairy/eggs (27%). Food folate was mainly lost through fresh vegetables/salads (40%) and bakery (18%), as was dietary fiber (31 and 29%, respectively). Environmental impacts were distributed over the food groups, with wasted meat and fish the single largest contribution. For all environmental impacts studied, the largest contribution came from agricultural production. This paper shows that there are areas where interventions preventing food waste and promoting healthy eating could work together (e.g., encouraging consumption of vegetables or tackling overbuying, especially of unhealthy foods). Food manufacturers and retailers, alongside governments and NGOs, have a key role to minimize waste of environmentally impactful, nutrient-dense foods, for instance, by helping influence people’s behaviors with appropriate formulation of products, packaging, portioning, use of promotions, or public education.

Measuring food and nutritional losses through value stream mapping along the dairy value chain in Uganda

“…At the processing plant, there were some established process controls, but these were insufficient to prevent almost 14% or 5-12% of losses observed along the UHT and yogurt production lines, respectively. The nutritional value loss attributed to this was also significant, with both marco-and micro-nutrients disappearing from the food system, in line with previous studies (Cooper et al, 2018;Spiker et al, 2017). As a consequence, the amount of essential nutrients needed for people to meet their Recommended Daily Allowances is lowered, which potentially increases undernutrition.…”

“…Total loss from all products was then summed up and divided with Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of adult males and females. The RDA, which represents the daily level of intake that is adequate to meet the nutrient requirements of nearly all healthy people was preferred to other reference values, in line with previous studies (Cooper et al, 2018;Spiker et al, 2017). RDA values were based on the Dietary Reference Intakes guidelines developed by the Food and Nutrition Board and Institute of Medicine (Otten et al, 2006).…”

“…The food insecurity situation is also worsened by considerable loss in nutritional value embedded within lost or wasted food that is never consumed (Sawaya, 2017). Yet the few studies that do link FLW with macro-or micro-nutrients lost from the supply chain are limited to developed countries (Cooper et al, 2018;Love et al, 2015;Spiker et al, 2017). Therefore, strategies to reduce FLW in developing countries are hindered by an absence of reliable data on FLW as well as nutritional losses that occurs within different food value chains (Affognon et al, 2015).…”

Reducing Food Loss and Waste: Setting a Global Action Agenda

“…One study in the United States found that food wasted at the retail and consumption stages on an average day in 2012 contained the recommended daily allowance of dietary fiber for 74 million adult women (Spiker et al 2017). In the United Kingdom, the typical food waste created by one person in one year could provide the nutrients and energy required for six weeks of the year for the average adult woman (Cooper et al 2018). The Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition (2018) reports that if rates of food loss and waste increase by around one-third by 2030 (due to rising incomes, urbanization, and failure to take decisive steps to reduce food loss and waste), significant nutrient "disappearance" would occur.…”

Introducing a dynamic framework to jointly address policy impacts on environmental and human health in a regional produce recovery and redistribution system

“…In 2012, the food that was wasted at the retail and consumer levels contained 1,217 kcal, 33 g protein, 5.9 g dietary fiber, 1.7 mg vitamin D, 286 mg calcium, and 880 mg potassium per capita per day according to our estimates. We also estimated what others subsequently termed “nutrient days” (Cooper et al, ) or the number of days of full nutrition that were lost. In subsequent research, we also used the tool to estimate lost nutrition in the vegetables and berries lost on Vermont farms (Neff et al, forthcoming).…”