Somewhere, Children Are Starving . . .

WASHINGTON, D.C.: As any horrified European will tell you, Americans put out more trash than anybody else. But hearing that we throw away one-fourth of the 356 billion pounds of food produced each year in the United States is a bit daunting. According to a Agriculture Department study, food wasted in U.S. retail stores, restaurants and homes amounted to a whopping 96 billion pounds in 1995. Recovery of just five percent of that food would have provided enough for 4 million people to eat, the study estimates. Homes and restaurants accounted for the bulk of the waste: grocery stores tossed out 5.4 billion pounds of food. While publicly aghast at the spoilage, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman is mostly satisfied with providing a food recovery hotline (1-800-GLEAN-IT)and such non-profit organizations as Second Harvest to distribute the bounty to the needed.