"Giusi" wrote

>>> Pradeep S. Mehta, secretary general of the center for
>>> international trade, economics and the environment of
>>> CUTS International, an independent research institute
>>> based here, said that if Americans slimmed down to the
>>> weight of middle-class Indians, many hungry people in
>>> sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates.

> Give me one reason why you should throw away food grown using finite
> resources such as petroleum and thus put food out of the reach of any
> other human being who is willing to work for his food?

It's more complex than that. Also, as others have stated to come up with
those figures they must be counting as 'waste' those portions of food which
most here would not consider 'food'. Green peelings off potatoes and such.
But back to what we do actually waste:

The complexity is we grow alot of food in the USA per person, but we have no
decent way to affordably get it over to others. We are in trillion dollar
debt zones and though not the only reason by far, one portion of it is huge
financial aide already going to various less weathy lands in the form of
money to buy food or directly as food.

There's a rather large pond on either side of us ;-) Food doesnt transport
itself for free over those. Our farm workers don't grow food for free nor
can the shippers afford to take it over for free. End result is any of us
(Europe too) tightening our belt, doesnt really make a difference to a
householder in India. Paying money to send cash or collecting enough to pay
to send food does help but the article doesnt look from that standpoint.