The relationship between household food waste and food security in Tehran city: The role of urban women in household management

Food loss and waste are some of the most urgent social, economic and environmental issues affecting our planet's sustainability, and it has a direct and indirect impact on food security. Food security is a strategic development issue in Iran. This study aims to investigate the overall prevalence and factors affecting household food security with a novel approach to analyze the relationship between food waste and food security in Tehran city. This study applied the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) for assessing food insecurity and logistic regression modeling. It was found that 64.2 percent of the households are food secure in Tehran. Results have shown that food waste has a significant negative effect on the food security of households, while marital status, family income, food storage, education and housing asset of family indicated positive significant effects on the food security of households. The results revealed most food waste is related to edible food waste such as bread, cooked rice, cooked pasta, which implies that the reduction of it can contribute to improving food security. In light of the major findings of this study, it is concluded that food waste control can decrease the food insecurity of urban Iranian households. This study is the first attempt to conceptualize and provide empirical evidence that food waste reduction increases food security A significant implication that emerges from this study is that food waste control programs could enhance food security in urban households.