Pope Francis took denounced consumerism on Wednesday by calling it the "culture of waste" of modern economies when it comes to food. He likened food wasting to stealing food from the poor and hungry.
"Our grandparents used to make a point of not throwing away leftover food. Consumerism has made us accustomed to wasting food daily and we are unable to see its real value," Francis said at his weekly audience in St. Peter's Square, NBC news noted.
"Throwing away food is like stealing from the table of those who are poor and hungry," he said.
The speech was part of the United Nations' anti-food waste campaign to mark World Environment Day.
According to the latest data from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization released, approximately 1.3 billion tons of food - one third of the world's total food production - are lost or wasted every year.
"The consumer share of food losses and waste can be very high in specific locations; for example, the amount of food wasted in one community in new york state in the united states of America in one year was sufficient to feed everyone in the community for 1.5 months and 60 percent of the losses occurred after the food was purchased by the consumer," the report states.
Diners in U.S. restaurants waste nine percent of the meals they bought, partly because of a trend to increase the size of everything from cheeseburgers to soft drinks, said the report by the World Resources Institute and the U.N. Environment Program.
