See all LastWeekTonight transcripts on Youtube

Speaker 1

00:00

-♪ ♪ -♪ Our main story tonight concerns food, or as plants and animals might call it, the afterlife. We love food in America, as you would know if you've ever turned on a television set.

Speaker 2

00:15

IHOP, all-you-can-eat pancakes are back. Introducing All-You-Can-Eat Wings, only at Golden Corral. Everyone's favorite, endless shrimp is back.

Speaker 3

00:23

People wait for this promotion all year

Speaker 4

00:25

long. Riblets, riblets, riblets, apple, beets, and riblets, all that you can eat now, riblets.

Speaker 1

00:34

Sadness, sadness, sadness, let food replace your sadness ♪ ♪ Stuff riblets in that hole in your heart. ♪

Speaker 4

00:42

That is... That's a catchy way

Speaker 1

00:45

to sell hog scraps hidden in barbecue sauce. In fact, celebrating America often goes hand-in-hand with celebrating its food. Watch this actual commercial running right now.

Speaker 5

00:56

What's more American than a cheeseburger? This cheeseburger, Loaded with a hot dog and potato chips. In the hands of all-American model, Samantha Hoopes.

Speaker 5

01:05

In a hot tub. In a pickup truck. Driven by an American bull rider. On an aircraft carrier.

Speaker 5

01:13

Under the gaze of Lady Liberty. As she admires the most American thick burger, new at Carl's Jr. In Hardee's.

Speaker 1

01:21

Wow. A cheeseburger with hot dog and potato chips. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the new Confederate flag. She's majestic.

Speaker 1

01:32

But this is not... This is not a story about the food we eat. It's a story about the food we don't eat, because there is a surprising amount of it.

Speaker 6

01:41

A report by the Natural Resources Defense Council says that

Speaker 3

01:44

as much as 40% of all the food produced in

Speaker 7

01:48

the United States never gets eaten. Americans throw away $165 billion worth of food every year. That's about 20 pounds per person every month.

Speaker 7

02:00

Americans throw away enough food every year to fill 730 football stadiums.

Speaker 1

02:06

Food waste is like the band Rascal Flats. It can fill a surprising number of stadiums, even though many people consider it complete garbage. --AUDIENCE LAUGHS AND GROANS --But between producers, sellers, and consumers, Americans are throwing out a third or more of our food.

Speaker 1

02:22

And the amount we throw out has increased by around 50% since the 1970s. At this rate, in 40 years, when you order pizza from Domino's, they'll just deliver it straight to the nearest dumpster. As they should, but that's not the point here. And if you think that this sounds bad, just wait until you see how it looks.

Speaker 1

02:41

Check out this waste dump in California's Salinas Valley.

Speaker 4

02:45

We got a whole load, pretty much, of loose organic lettuce. You know, we've got spinach towards the back. Looks like it's perfectly fine, nothing wrong with it.

Speaker 4

02:53

We got some, some kale here. We got broccoli in the back as well. We have plenty of produce to make a salad here.

Speaker 1

03:01

Oh, not just a salad. You could make a significantly better salad than the salads they actually sell at McDonald's, which look like the trimmings in Ronald McDonald's lawnmower mixed with Grimace ejaculate. And...

Speaker 1

03:12

And the thing is, watching all that food go from farm to not a table is awful for a bunch of reasons. First and most obviously, there are many people in this country who need that food. In 2013, nearly 50 million Americans lived in food-insecure households, meaning that At some point in the year, they struggle to put enough food on the table. And the fact that we throw away a third of our food gets pretty alarming when you hear from some of those people.

Speaker 3

03:39

It's hard. I'll go without food before my kids will. Budget's down to the penny and it's...

Speaker 3

03:45

It's not enough still. It brings you to tears. Yeah. Why?

Speaker 3

03:51

It's just hard. They're so young and it's hard.

Speaker 1

03:54

It is crazy that that is happening in a country with 730 football stadiums full of uneaten food. It's insane. But there are also other less obvious consequences to discarding food.

Speaker 1

04:06

For a start, we're wasting all the labor and natural resources that went into making it. And at a time when the landscape of California is shriveling up like a pumpkin in front of a house with a lazy dad. It seems especially unwise that farmers are pumping water into food that ends up being used as a garnish for landfills. Because those landfills go on to cause problems of their own.

Speaker 4

04:28

If you were to throw an apple core just out into the woods, it's not a big deal. The problem comes when all of that waste is aggregated, and it decomposes without air in a landfill. That anaerobic condition is what creates methane, which is a greenhouse gas that's more than 20 times as potent as CO2 at trapping heat.

Speaker 1

04:49

That's right. When we dump food into a landfill, we're essentially throwing a trash blanket over a flatulent food man and Dutch-ovening the entire planet. And if you're thinking, but hold on, John, What if I'm an arsehole who couldn't give a shit about America's hungry families or the long-term viability of life on Earth?

Speaker 1

05:07

Well, first, let me say, Mr. Trump, thank you so much for taking the time

Speaker 4

05:11

to watch this show tonight. It's lovely to have you with us. And secondly, don't worry.

Speaker 1

05:17

There is a selfish financial reason for you to care about this story, too.

Speaker 8

05:22

In our households, we're wasting somewhere between 15 and 25 percent of the food that we're buying. You know, that's expensive. I mean, imagine walking out of a grocery store with 4 bags of groceries, dropping 1 in the parking lot and just not bothering to pick it up.

Speaker 8

05:36

And that's essentially what we're doing in our homes today.

Speaker 1

05:40

And that's not good. When you're throwing away that much food, you're not just being wasteful, you're whining and dining raccoons. --Hissing.

Speaker 1

05:47

--Oh, this is absolutely lovely. --Hissing. --Thanks for this. We needed a break from the kids.

Speaker 1

05:53

Hiss! And look, look, it's a good thing. So many of us have access to plenty of relatively inexpensive food. I love the fact that we live in a country with Cap'n Crunch, Peanut Butter Crunch, Chocolaty Crunch, Sprinkle Donut Crunch, Cinnamon Roll Crunch, Christmas Crunch, and Halloween Crunch.

Speaker 1

06:13

I will even defend Oops! All Berries Crunch, a cereal so unnecessary that its actual name includes an apology for its existence. But it does seem... It does seem like our food wastage is getting to a critical mass, and so much of it stems from our own habits and misconceptions.

Speaker 1

06:31

For instance, stores big and small often routinely overstock so that you can walk in and see tons of food there. Because if they don't do that, as this small farm stand operator describes it, we might not buy anything.

Speaker 9

06:44

If this was what I had... And there was an hour left in the market, that 1 bunch of chard would sit there, and no 1 would buy it. But if I had 30 bunches of chard all bursting out, I'd probably sell like 25 of those bunches

Speaker 4

07:00

of chard.

Speaker 9

07:00

So what does that say? People are totally impulse shopping, and they think if there's 1 left, that there's something wrong with it.

Speaker 1

07:07

It's true. I wouldn't buy that chard. Partly because it's chard, but mainly because we naturally assume the last option is a bad option, which in many contexts is absolutely the case.

Speaker 1

07:19

For example, you don't want the last magazine in the doctor's office because it's always Golf Digest. Always, and no 1 has ever read Golf Digest. That's not even a golf club in his hand, but no 1 noticed because it's on Golf Digest. But when it comes to produce, the last option is probably completely fine, especially because, as another farmer explains, even slightly subpar fruits and vegetables don't make it to the produce aisle.

Speaker 10

07:48

Every time that the people are picking, they'll have a few they throw on the ground. Because there's always a few that aren't quite perfect.

Speaker 3

07:54

This is a perfectly good peach, right on the ground like this. Oh, my God. If you just look down this way, it's like a bounty.

Speaker 3

08:02

Look at that.

Speaker 1

08:04

And the reason that happens is that if a peach doesn't meet strict aesthetic standards, it might not be worth a farmer even trying to sell it. Our produce aisles have become a lot like Leonardo DiCaprio's penis, exclusively accessible to the physically flawless. And it's not right.

Speaker 1

08:19

That's not right. In fact, our produce body shaming is actually so ingrained, it's reflected in the USDA's grading standards. Just look at the visual grading standards for peaches. This is a number 1 peach, and of course it is.

Speaker 1

08:32

That's an undeniably beautiful peach. I want to buy that peach dinner and fuck it. Whereas, and brace yourself, this is a number 2 peach, and that is an abomination unto the Lord. And as soon as it is labeled a number 2, it can lose two-thirds of its market value to a farmer, even though its contents are the same.

Speaker 1

08:53

And many retailers have standards even more strict than the USDA's, all of which is why so many peaches end up being thrown on the ground to rot. And that should not be how we treat our fruit. It should only be how we treat our celebrities. So help me God, Channing Tatum, you lose 1 muscle fiber on that six-pack and I will personally toss you into Hollywood's landfill.

Speaker 1

09:15

You keep it tight, Tatum. Hashtag, keep it tight, Tatum. You

Speaker 4

09:20

do it. And the thing is, we don't

Speaker 1

09:24

just reject food because of how it looks. Sometimes we do it out of pure fear. According to 1 estimate, 91% of us have thrown out food that's past its sell-by date because we're afraid it's not safe.

Speaker 1

09:36

And I am absolutely part of that 91%. We're weirdly reverent towards these dates, even when they make no sense.

Speaker 10

09:44

Use by, sell by, and nothing but just a date.

Speaker 7

09:49

And this is all the same brand?

Speaker 10

09:50

This is all the same brand. This is not only the same brand, but also the same 2 percent.

Speaker 7

09:55

So what does this show us?

Speaker 10

09:57

This shows there's complete confusion out there.

Speaker 1

10:01

The only labels on food more meaningless than those are the ones on Smirnoff bottles that say, triple distilled vodka. Oh, really Smirnoff? So you ran the potato sweats through the tube sock 2 extra times, thanks for spending the effort.

Speaker 1

10:16

We naturally assume sell-by dates reflect a uniform standard of safety, but that is not true.

Speaker 11

10:23

Well actually it has nothing to do with safety at all, it's just a manufacturer's best guess of when that food is going to be the freshest and at the best quality.

Speaker 1

10:30

Exactly, Those dates are decided on by manufacturers. And if I were a food manufacturer, I would make those dates as tight as possible to convince people to buy a new 1 of my products. Because unlike Apple, I can't just create a new operating system that suddenly means your old cereal is incompatible with your mouth.

Speaker 1

10:49

And the truth is, with the exception of baby formula, the federal government does not require any food to carry an expiration date. And state laws vary widely, with 9 states not requiring any date labels at all. Which means most of the time, sell-by dates are 1 of those things that look official, but you can probably ignore. Like a child in a cop uniform.

Speaker 1

11:10

Just... Just stop it, Tyler. I'm not under a West. You're under a West.

Speaker 1

11:16

-♪ ♪ -♪ But... But because we think those dates are real, many supermarkets throw expired food out even before it's sell-by date. And they don't donate it for what they think is a pretty good reason. That's a

Speaker 4

11:56

common misconception. It goes straight in the garbage. I do it because I get too many lawsuits.

Speaker 4

11:56

There's too many lawsuits? Have you guys been sued before? I don't know, to tell you the truth.

Speaker 1

11:56

Oh, okay. But it's a health and safety issue. That's a common misconception.

Speaker 1

11:57

We all think that if you donate food and someone gets sick, you can get sued. I thought that until earlier this week. But we looked into it and couldn't find a single case where a food donor has been sued. It doesn't happen.

Speaker 1

12:09

It's a false fear. Like believing if you go in the water after eating, you'll get a cramp and drown. Yeah, it turns out that isn't true either. This week has blown my mind.

Speaker 1

12:21

Because the system is, if you donate food to a charity, you're covered by the Emerson Act, which says you cannot be sued if you make a food donation in good faith. You presumably get the same cover with donating clothes. Even though in some cases there, you really should be sued. Donating a cowl-neck sweater?

Speaker 1

12:40

Hello. The Homeless Live in Shelters, not Fall 2008. 0000. But here's...

Speaker 1

12:51

Here's the problem. Even if more people understood that, there would still be food that doesn't get to people who need it for a critical reason.

Speaker 3

12:59

Harold McLarty of HMC Farms says he'd like to donate more of his peaches to the food banks, but...

Speaker 12

13:06

Getting it into the hands of somebody to eat it isn't free. There's gotta be an economic incentive to move more of this into an avenue that the food banks could take advantage of. It's a lot easier and cheaper just to basically throw it away.

Speaker 1

13:19

And that may be the biggest issue of all. For businesses, donating food is genuinely expensive. You've got to box it, store it, coordinate deliveries for it.

Speaker 1

13:28

There's a lot of overheads. And you cannot fault companies for caring about their bottom line. In the same way, you can't fault a dog for caring about licking its balls. It's what dogs do, it's natural, and dog balls are delicious.

Speaker 1

13:40

-♪

Speaker 2

13:40

Dog balls are delicious ♪ -♪ Dog

Speaker 1

13:41

balls are delicious ♪ Companies, in their defense, are not charities. Which is why they should be incentivized to donate food. With tax breaks, large corporations already get 1.

Speaker 1

13:52

But annoyingly, that same break for small businesses is not a permanent part of the tax code. Meaning that Congress has to keep renewing it. And that's a problem. Because family farms or local restaurants may not know if they're going to get that break at the end of the year, and therefore, whether donating food will be financially viable for them.

Speaker 1

14:09

It's a ridiculous system, which probably prevents a lot of food from being donated. So here is the good news. In February this year, a congressman proposed HR 644, the Fighting Hunger Incentive Act, to make that tax break permanent. Here, actually, is 1 of the bill's sponsors.

Speaker 2

14:27

It's time to get rid of these short-term fixes, embrace long-term solutions. This legislation simply makes the provisions permanent.

Speaker 1

14:34

And when you think about it, that's important, because when something's not permanent, it affects our behavior. That's why we all treat rental cars like we're in a Fast and Furious movie. Oh, I'm sorry, Sharp turn ahead, get ready to drift, Kia Sorento.

Speaker 1

14:49

Whoo-hoo! Now, you'll be happy to hear that bill passed the House. However, by the time it did, it had been bundled together with other unpaid-for tax breaks and retitled the America Gives More Act. But still, that original provision was in there.

Speaker 1

15:06

Which means this problem has been solved, the show is over, we can roll credits and all live happily ever after, right? No. Not right. Because when the bill got to the Senate, they, and I honestly did not know this was even possible.

Speaker 1

15:22

They removed everything from inside the bill, retitled it the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, and refilled it with completely different language concerning border control and U.S.-Israeli relations. Which meant, yes, HR-644 passed, just with a completely different title and completely different contents. It's like going to a restaurant, ordering a veggie burger and having the waiter say, here you go, we made it out of meatloaf and we call it a waffle. -...and then...

Speaker 1

15:50

-...and then... You can't even say, well, I don't want this, give it to someone who needs it, because they can't, because they don't know whether or not they'll get a fucking tax credit for it. And look,

Speaker 4

16:02

the... The insane thing...

Speaker 1

16:05

-...is everyone basically agrees... -...is... Small businesses should get tax incentives to donate food.

Speaker 1

16:12

So we have to find a way to pass that. But even if we do, it will be 1 small part of what needs to be a much bigger solution. From resolving to eat uglier fruit, to taking expiration dates with a pinch of salt, to no longer worrying about getting sued by high-powered lawyers representing the hungry. And...

Speaker 1

16:31

And we all have to address our relationship with food waste.

Speaker 4

16:36

Or at

Speaker 1

16:37

the very least, our cheeseburger commercials are gonna have to get a lot more honest.

Speaker 2

16:42

What's more American than a cheeseburger? This cheeseburger, loaded with a hot dog and potato chips, in the hands of a model, in a hot tub, in a pickup truck, on an aircraft carrier, in front of the Statue of Liberty. I'll tell you what's more American, if that cheeseburger's been thrown away, along with 15 other cheeseburgers, in front of a food-insecure family of 4, who frankly cannot f***ing believe their eyes as they stand on top of 14 tons of perfectly edible, if aesthetically unappealing fruits and vegetables which in turn sits on top of 80 tons of dairy products all 1 day past their arbitrary sell-by date, all of which sits inside a tear, rolling down Abraham Lincoln's face on Mount Rushmore, which is now nearly chin-deep in millions of discarded cheeseburgers, all gradually decomposing and emitting flammable methane in red, white, and blue.

Speaker 2

17:33

That is f-ing American. A vote of no confidence for the Carl's Jr. Hotties.

Speaker 4

17:45

You