Dave WordenTriumph Business Solutions · Founder

Is Your Food Waste Harming the Planet?

3 Jul 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:07

In this short YouTube segment, two speakers discuss the intertwined relationship between food production and climate change, noting that the global food system generates roughly one‑third of all anthropogenic greenhouse‑gas emissions and that 30‑40% of produced food is discarded. They highlight a restaurant, Shuggie's, whose chef and co‑owner David Murphy upcycles typically discarded parts—such as carrot tops—into a signature chimichurri sauce, illustrating a business‑level solution. The conversation then shifts to a personal household example: multiple unopened hot sauces accumulate in the fridge, leading to waste through expiration. The speakers mention a new app that, by photographing random ingredients, suggests recipes, offering a tech‑driven way to reduce waste at the consumer level. The overall narrative frames food waste as a significant climate problem while showcasing both culinary and digital interventions that can mitigate it.

Chapters

Climate change is affecting our food and our food is affecting the climate. NPR is dedicating a week to stories and conversations about the search for solutions. Everything involved in making food, as some of these businesses are doing, comes from clearing land and raising cattle to packing and cooking ingredients, contributes to one-third of the world's planet-warming pollution. On top of that, roughly 30 to 40% of all food produced globally gets thrown out, which is a huge problem when it comes to human-caused climate change. This one company, Shuggie's, used upcycled ingredients in their recipes that might typically be discarded in other restaurants. Instead of tossing carrot tops, for example, Shuggie's chef and co-owner David Murphy uses them to make his signature chimichurri sauce.
I noticed in our own refrigerator there's this hot sauce that we like and there's like 6 of them in there. I'm like, why is there? The conclusion is when I am out shopping, I'm like, I don't know if we have any sauce left. When Krista's out shopping, she's like, I don't know if we have any sauce left. And we just keep buying the same sauce. There's like 3 or 4 that aren't even opened. They expire. I mean, what a waste. I know. Our cabins are stocked with food and I come home and say, There's nothing. There's nothing to eat. There's an app out there now that you can just grab random ingredients, put on the table, take a picture of it, and tells you what you can make from it. That's so smart.