Inedible Food Waste Linked to Diet Quality and Food Spending in the Seattle Obesity Study SOS III

Abstract

Americans waste about a pound of food per day. Some of this is represented by inedible food waste at the household level. Our objective was to estimate inedible food waste in relation to diet quality and participant socio-economic status (SES). Seattle Obesity Study III participants (n = 747) completed the Fred Hutch Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) and socio-demographic and food expenditure surveys. Education and geo-coded tax-parcel residential property values were measures of SES. Inedible food waste was calculated from diet records. Retail prices of FFQ component foods (n = 378) were used to estimate individual-level diet costs. The NOVA classification was used to identify ultra-processed foods. Multivariable linear regressions tested associations between inedible food waste, SES, food spending, Nutrient Rich Food (NRF9.3) and Healthy Eating Index (HEI-2015) scores. Inedible food waste was estimated at 78.7 g/d, mostly from unprocessed vegetables (32.8 g), fruit (30.5 g) and meat, poultry, and fish (15.4 g). Greater inedible food waste was associated with higher HEI-2015 and NRF9.3 scores, higher food expenditures and lower percent energy from ultra-processed foods. In multivariable models, more inedible food waste was associated with higher food expenditures, education and residential property values. Higher consumption of unprocessed foods were associated with more inedible food waste and higher diet costs. Geo-located estimates of inedible food waste can provide a proxy index of neighborhood diet quality.

Associations between neighborhood built environment, residential property values, and adult BMI change: The Seattle Obesity Study III

“…Details on the Seattle Obesity Study (SOS) III cohort have been published elsewhere ( Buszkiewicz et al, 2020 ; Gupta et al, 2021 ; Rose et al, 2020 ). In brief, the SOS III recruited participants from sites in King County (University of Washington), Pierce County (MultiCare Institute for Research and Innovation), and Yakima County (Fred Hutch).…”

“…We further compared these associations with that of residential property values, a proxy measure of socioeconomic status (SES) associated with individual accumulated wealth, and BMI change ( Berrigan et al, 2015 ; Coffee, Lockwood, Rossini, Niyonsenga, & McGreal, 2020 ; Drewnowski et al, 2016 , 2020 ; Leonard et al, 2016 , 2017 ; Ware, 2019 ). We evaluated these associations in a prospective cohort of adult respondents from three urban and rural counties in WA State, which differed in both racial/ethnic composition and in urban form ( Buszkiewicz et al, 2020 ; Gupta et al, 2021 ; Rose et al, 2020 ). A secondary question was whether any associations between BE measures, residential property values, and BMI change might be modified by age group, gender, race/ethnicity, or education.…”

Implementation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) among the Member Cities of the “Healthy Cities Network” in Israel

“…Food waste reduction programs are more prevalent in higher SEC municipalities. This might reflect the excessive amount of food that goes to waste in the higher SES population, as was demonstrated by Gupta et al [57]. This would necessitate programs to abolish this phenomenon or, at the very least, salvage food for the needy.…”

Affordable Nutrient Density in Brazil: Nutrient Profiling in Relation to Food Cost and NOVA Category Assignments

“…The present analyses evaluated the nutrient density of foods in Brazil using two separate nutrient density metrics. The NRF9.3 nutrient density score, based on nine nutrients to encourage and three nutrients to limit, had been used in many previous studies [ 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 ]. The new NRF6.3 score was based on six priority nutrients to encourage and the same three nutrients to limit.…”