Gaby
Researchers say Generation Z wastes more food than their parents do.
Often that’s because young people are confused by food expiration labels — and they tend to trust them without question. But that’s not the only reason for Gen Z’s casual attitude toward food.
United Nations data shows the world wastes enough food to feed everyone who is hungry. Globally, people throw away more than one billion tons of food each year.
In high- and middle-income countries, Gen Z tends to toss food more readily — especially bread, vegetables, and fruit. One reason: many young people have never farmed or grown their own food, never experienced real hunger, and have always lived with expiration-date labels. They’re often fearful of food poisoning and see misleading posts on social media about product safety. Researchers say people need to relearn to trust their senses — smell, sight, and taste — to judge freshness.
What Did the Scientists Discover?
A team from Harvard University led by Professor Emily Broad Leib surveyed 2,069 Americans about why they throw away food and compared the responses to a similar survey conducted in 2016.
The new study found that 43 percent of people always or usually discard food based solely on its expiration date. That represents a 37 percent increase since 2016. Professor Broad Leib said people have become “overly cautious.”
The study also found only 57 percent of respondents correctly interpret date labels, the Daily Mail reported.
Respondents aged 13 to 28 tend to fully trust those labels. “We found that the youngest consumers are more likely to trust date labels,” Broad Leib said. As a result, they often discard products as soon as the date passes. By contrast, their parents began shopping before expiration-date labels were common.
Broad Leib says “for most products, it is impossible to specify an exact date after which they become unsafe.” The printed date often signals a conservative estimate of safety rather than a clear-cut drop in quality.
For example, the UK Food Standards Agency said: “You can eat food up until midnight on the expiration date indicated on the product… After this date, the product can still be consumed, but it may no longer be of the best quality.”
Young People Don’t Want to Spend Time on Food
The team also discovered that young people living independently waste twice as much food as those who live with older generations. Another factor is household size: the more people there are, the less food is wasted.
Researchers also pointed to impulsive shopping habits and a tendency to order takeout. In other words, a society of overproduction has produced a generation that prefers quick access to food and is less willing to plan purchases and meal preparation carefully.
Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Boston, Professor Broad Leib said, “The further we move away from the times when people participated in growing, harvesting, or producing food, the more people view it as just another manufactured product.”
Researchers aren’t saying young people should eat expired food. They simply urge them not to buy more food than they can eat.
