Erika Jones, CFO, CCTAProfit First Professionals · Certified Fractional CFO and Profit First Professional

Is Your Food Waste Harming the Planet?

3 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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1:07

The video presents an NPR segment that links food production and waste to climate change, noting that food‑related activities generate roughly one‑third of global greenhouse‑gas emissions and that 30‑40 % of all food produced is discarded. It highlights a restaurant, Shuggie's, whose chef‑co‑owner David Murphy reduces waste by upcycling typically discarded parts—such as carrot tops—into menu items like a signature chimichurri sauce. The segment then shifts to a personal anecdote about household food waste, describing how unopened condiments accumulate and expire, illustrating everyday inefficiencies. It concludes by mentioning a new app that, using a photo of available ingredients, suggests recipes, offering a tech‑enabled behavioral solution to reduce waste at the consumer level.

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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. Yep. 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.