Diane GardnerFounder, Adept Business Solutions · Profit First Professional

Is Your Food Waste Harming the Planet?

3 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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1:07

In this NPR‑style segment, two speakers discuss the intertwined relationship between food production and climate change. Speaker A explains that the global food system is responsible for roughly one‑third of all greenhouse‑gas emissions and that 30‑40 % of food produced worldwide is discarded, amplifying human‑driven climate impact. As a concrete example, the restaurant Shuggie's and its chef‑co‑owner David Murphy are highlighted for upcycling typically discarded parts—such as carrot tops—into a signature chimichurri sauce, illustrating a business‑level solution. Speaker B shares a personal anecdote about household food waste, noting multiple unopened hot‑sauce bottles that expire unused, and points out a new app that can photograph random pantry items and suggest recipes, offering a tech‑driven way to reduce waste at the consumer level. The segment frames both systemic and individual actions as pathways to mitigate food‑related climate harm.

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, and take a picture of it and tells you what you can make from it. That's so smart.