From the Daily Telegraph
My British mind boggles at American eating habits
Outside a convenience store in Kansas, I got talking to a man eating a “Midwest breakfast”: egg and bacon pizza, accompanied by a 36-ounce soda (containing 120g of sugar) and a pint of “americano”.
According to a 2023 study conducted by the Oxford University information platform, Our World in Data, “the average American buys 3,868 calories a day”. But the significant take-away here (pun intended) is that not all the food that gets bought actually gets eaten.
According to Feeding America, a nationwide network of foodbanks, around 38 per cent of the country’s food gets wasted every year. That’s 80 million tonnes, or 145 billion meals, valued at a staggering $444 billion.
Additional information. This
could be given to students, or they could be asked to search for it (or could
just be told that they don’t have enough information to answer a couple of the questions
and will need to work out what additional info they need).
·
According to the NHS website, “As a guide: an
average man needs 2,500kcal a day, an average woman needs 2,000kcal a day”.
·
A sugar cube weighs about 4g, and contains
16 calories.
·
The population of the USA is 337 million.
Some possible questions:
1) How
many calories are wasted per person per day on average?
2) How
many tonnes of food is bought every year?
3) How
many meals are eaten per year in the USA?
How many is that per person per day?
4) What
is the weight of one meal?
5) How
much does a meal cost, on average?
6) What
percentage of additional calories above the recommended amount are consumed by
the average American?
7) What
percentage of the daily calories for a man are in the “36-ounce soda”?
Answers:
1) How
many calories are wasted per person per day on average?
38% is wasted, so if 3,868 calories are bought per person
then we can find 38% of that, which is 1470 calories.
2) How
many tonnes of food is bought every year?
80 million tonnes is 38%, so we need to divide by 0.38 to
give 210.5 tonnes (more appropriately rounded to 210 tonnes?)
3) How
many meals are eaten per year in the USA?
How many is that per person per day?
145 billion divided by 0.38 = 381.6 billion. Divide by 365 and then divide by 337 million,
to get 3.1 per person per day. This
suggests that children are included in the figures.
4) What
is the weight of one meal?
80 million tonnes is 80 billion kg. 80 billion kg divided
by 145 billion meals gives 0.551724 kg per meal, which is about 550g.
5) How
much does a meal cost, on average?
444 billion dollars divided by 145 billion meals = $3.06
on average. [Why is it OK for us to use
the figures in the article to work out the answers to Q4 and Q5, rather than
needing to find the total cost for all of the food? Both versions work!]
6) What
percentage of additional calories above the recommended amount are consumed by
the average American?
38% of the calories bought are wasted, so that leaves
2398.16 (call it 2400 calories) being consumed per person. If the population were half men and half women
then the recommended daily amount would be 2250 (the average of 2000 and 2500),
but the inclusion of children would affect that figure. The average excess is at least 2400 – 2250 =
150. Then divide by 2250, to give 7%.
7) What
percentage of the daily calories for a man are in the “36-ounce soda”?
120 g of sugar in the fizzy drink, which is 120/4 = 30 sugar cubes! 16 calories in each cube gives 480 calories. 480/2500 = 19.2%
Sources: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment/my-british-mind-boggles-at-american-eating-habits/
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-weight/managing-your-weight/understanding-calories/
