Americans still drink a lot of soda: Sales in the U.S. were more than $70 billion in 2014, according to Euromonitor International, well ahead of China, the runner-up market, with $28.4 billion. The way we think about, talk about, and legislate soda has changed rather drastically—and we drink relatively less of it too, with consumption dropping 25 percent between 1998 and 2014. So with the threat of soda taxes and warning labels and an increased popular understanding of the links between sugar-sweetened beverages and obesity, companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi are looking to sell more of their products elsewhere—especially in developing markets.

People go to bed hungry every night in nearly 7 million households in the U.S., according to a report published last month by the National Commission on Hunger. 

And yet, Americans throw away 40 percent of our food—the equivalent of $165 billion each year—according to the National Resources Defense Council.

Can we distribute food to those who need it? Rather than bury it in landfills, where it generates methane emissions that heat up the Earth’s atmosphere?

On December 7, 2015, U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, (D-Maine) introduced H.R. 4184, the Food Recovery Act.

H.R. 4148 proposes comprehensive legislation to address food waste in four areas: at the consumer level; at the retail (grocery stores and restaurants) level; at the institutional (schools, hospitals and other institutions); and on the farm.

What does the bill mean for consumers?

TAKE ACTION! Tell Congress: Support the Food Recovery Act (HR 4184)!

You would think that even the smallest bit of evidence suggesting a pesticide causes birth defects, brain damage and mental disorders in children would be enough for our government to ban the use of that toxin on our food.

And yet, it’s taken nearly a decade—and a court ordered mandate—to get the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to propose banning Dow’s child-poisoning chlorpyrifos from our food system.

Chlorpyrifos, better known as Dursban and Lorsban, is a neurotoxic organophosphate. According to Beyond Pesticides, studies have documented that exposure to even low levels of organophosphates like chlorpyrifos during pregnancy can impair learning, change brain function, and alter thyroid levels of offspring into adulthood.

The evidence of the neurotoxic dangers associated with chlorpyrifos’ exposure is extensive and consistent. Yet the EPA currently allows low-level residues of chlorpyrifos on food, in spite of recent studies which suggest that low levels of chlorpyrifos and other endocrine disrupters may actually be more toxic than higher levels.