Americans throw away almost half off all food grown and the reason is due to what has been called "the cult of perfection". Growers say that the food they produce might have a small spot, or be slightly different in shape, and although this does not affect the quality of the food at all, consumers just don't want it.

This desire by people for perfect fruit and vegetables means that even though food is of excellent quality and is very healthy, much of it is tossed out, or not even harvested, because of some little shape or colour difference. Around the world, about one-third of food is wasted. That's 1.6 billion tons of produce a year, worth around $1 trillion. It has been said that if this wasted food were to be put in 20-cubic metre containers, it would fill 80 million of them, enough to reach all the way to the moon!

Within the US, thrown-away food is the single biggest part of trash going to landfills, says the Environmental Protection Agency. Dumped food is a big source of methane, a far more dangerous greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Food waste causes about 8 percent of climate pollution worldwide, more than is produced by all of India or Russia. Food experts say that more and more people understand that we cannot effectively fight hunger, or climate change, without reducing food waste.