Americans throw away about a third of all edible food that they buy per year. That's almost 30 billion pounds of food a year, 11 billion of which are fruits and vegetables. On a day-by-day basis, that's about 1 pound of food per person per day. In financial terms, that's a waste of around $400 Dollars per person per year in the United States. Processing American food waste takes more than 350 million barrels of oil every year which is above most countries in the world. If we could reduce the food we throw away and give it to people in need we could cut that number in half and actually help people in need.