Hopefully by now we're on the same page: something needs to be done about the food waste problem. But what?
Something needs to be done globally. This will take time. You cannot force other people to live a certain way, but there are things that you can start doing now to decrease your food waste footprint for the future.
Many who are concerned with this issue, like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), have great ideas of things you can do at home to reduce your food wastage. Some things that the EPA suggest:
- Finish what is in your fridge before you go out shopping
- Plan what you will eat this week before you go shopping
- Buy only what you know you will use for sure
A lot of this boils down into the idea of being conscious of what you eat and when you eat. If you don't really eat broccoli, don't buy a ton of it. It sounds like something that's very simple, but it's easy to buy more than you need if you are worried about having enough. If you only go shopping when you need food, and plan it out correctly, quite a bit can be eliminated from what you waste. Perhaps you can even save a little money in the process.
An article on the website Civil Eats offers these tips:
- Keep your kitchen organized so you know what you have available
- Stock ingredients that can go with a variety of foods
- Eat leftovers
- Keep food fresh
- Freeze food
- Understand that if an item is past its expiration date it isn't necessarily bad
I've struggled myself with some of these, and they prove to be good ideas. I've had a messy fridge that led to spoiled food because I forgot about the items. Lately, I have been buying less food at a time and putting the foods that spoil faster towards the front of the fridge. You can do these easily, as well!
The Kitchn suggests keeping a diary of food waste. If you keep track of what you waste, you may waste less because you are realizing when you are wasting. I know that I have probably tossed something into the trash without thinking, but if I was more aware of it in the moment, I might have saved it, or maybe even eaten it.
These are helpful ideas about how to prevent food from being wasted, but what about if you just know that you, or anyone else in your house is not going to eat it?
Composting is one idea.
Earth911 takes it a step further. In their article, 10 Foods You Can Grow from Scraps, they explain that the things in our food scraps (fruits and vegetables) can sometimes be used to grow more. The example they give is the green onion. The white end of a green onion can be placed in a cup of water and its green parts will grow back. The same is said for celery.
Earth911 isn't the only one using this practice. Veggietorial's youtube channel features a video tutorial on how to do this as well. If you're interested, click around the article or take a look at this video:
Earth911 takes it a step further. In their article, 10 Foods You Can Grow from Scraps, they explain that the things in our food scraps (fruits and vegetables) can sometimes be used to grow more. The example they give is the green onion. The white end of a green onion can be placed in a cup of water and its green parts will grow back. The same is said for celery.
Earth911 isn't the only one using this practice. Veggietorial's youtube channel features a video tutorial on how to do this as well. If you're interested, click around the article or take a look at this video:
Great post. It's true that the first step is to just be conscious of the issue, and unfortunately most people aren't. The thing is that planning for eating is difficult because you never know how you're going to be feeling in a few days. Sometimes when you're at the store you see something and have a great idea for a meal, but when you get home the spark is gone. But I think the waste diary is a great idea.
ReplyDeleteOh my god, this makes me feel so guilty - I have this habit of buying mushrooms and then never using them. It happens ALL THE TIME. By the time I decide I want to make an omelet and check out the mushrooms, they're gross and slimy and smelly. In the trash they go.
ReplyDeleteYour post was great for several reasons. First, it was well organized and you did an awesome job summarizing the info from the websites (I actually saved them to my favorites for future reference). Secondly, it shines a spotlight on an issue we so often overlook - and ways to solve the problem. I can't wait to watch the video about using kitchen scraps for gardening. I think my mom does a lot of that already, but I want to try and form my own sustainable habits. Thanks to you, I now have somewhere to start!
I think there are some good points in here too. I know food waste is an issue with my family, specifically when it comes to things sitting in the fridge or cabinet. I do sort of think planning what to eat ahead of time is hard. For instances I have NO idea what I'm going to eat when I go home later today. I'm also kind of picky, so I probably won't be able to plan for tomorrow or the next day either.
ReplyDeletePeople probably should organize their fridge instead of just tossing things in there. This also seems pretty doable. Frozen food and leftovers is totally for me too. :)