In recent years, there has been an increasing concern among governments about food loss and waste – FL&W and, in this context, the  food rescue and donation – FR&D has emerged in the scenario of socioenvironmental policies as a strategic factor for FL&W reduction. Despite FR&D have potential to establish a “win-win” arrangement between the spheres of waste management and demands of food security, it still has been perceived as a less attractive alternative than forwarding the surplus food to the waste treatment system. Thus, to understand what the practice of FR&D consists of, as well as to identify its limits and possibilities for inclusion in socioenvironmental policies, this systematic review was undertaken from January to April 2020, grounded on a research of scientific papers on the Scopus digital platform. Conducted under PRISMA recommendations, 40 articles were scrutinized. The corpus suggests a majority of authors and studies on FR&D from developed countries, although food insecurity is more often present in developing countries. For the objectives of the present review, a conceptual scan was carried out, in order to explain what the practice of rescue is and also to define its object. It was concluded that, despite the aparent “win-win” solution, both integrating FR&D and encompassing food security and solid waste management, it unveils contradictions that deserves further and deeper investigations on its effectiveness as a socioenvironmental policies tool.