Can you afford to throw away $2,000 a year? If you are the average American, the answer is, apparently, yes—and you may not even be aware of it. Americans throw away approximately $165 billion worth of food each year, and for the average American family, that can be up to $2,200 per household, according to a recent study by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

That all adds up to 35 million tons of food each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency in its most recent estimate. That's 50 percent more than in 1990 and three times more of what Americans discarded in 1960. That's a sad statistic, considering hunger in America. According to Feeding America, right now 1 in 7 Americans—or 46.5 million people—use food banks.

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It's a costly trend. "The amount of food Americans waste has increased over 50 percent in the last four decades, one contributor to the staggering 40 percent of all food which goes to waste in this country," according to an excerpt from the soon-to-be-released book "The Waste-Free Kitchen Handbook" by NRDC staff scientist Dana Gunders. Read MoreThis kitchen teaches you how to cook! The runaway portion sizes in the American food industry exacerbate the waste issue.

"From 1982–2002, the average pizza slice grew 70 percent in calories. The average chicken Caesar salad doubled in calories, and the average chocolate chip cookie quadrupled," revealed the NRDC study.

"This is a cultural phenomenon that needs to change. Before the iconic anti-littering campaigns of the 1970s, littering was a common practice," said JoAnne Berkenkamp, senior advocate for food & agriculture at the NRDC. "Today it isn't acceptable to throw your leftover cheeseburger out the window of your car, but most of us don't think twice about throwing it in the trash."

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