Each year, about 40 percent of all food in the United States goes uneaten. It\u2019s just tossed out or left to rot. And that\u2019s a fairly large waste of resources. All that freshwater and land, all that fertilizer and energy \u2014 for nothing. By one recent estimate, Americans are squandering the equivalent of $165 billion each year by rubbishing so much food.<\/p>\n
But these statistics don\u2019t tell the full story. How does the food actually get wasted? For that, here\u2019s a\u00a0new report\u00a0from the Natural Resources Defense Council that tries to track food waste up and down the system, from \u201cfarm to fork.\u201d\u00a0My colleague Dina ElBoghdady has already highlighted some of the report\u2019s conclusions\u00a0\u2014 including the fact that Europe does a better job of curtailing waste than the United States. But it\u2019s worth looking at where food actually gets wasted each step of the way. So let\u2019s follow the steps:<\/p>\n