In the United States alone, 31% of the available food supply at retail and consumer levels went to waste in 2010. This was valued at about$161 billion in food waste at the time.
As you read this, you may recognize how you inadvertently contributed to that statistic; maybe those bags of spinach or that old chicken that went uneaten come to mind.
But considering almost a third of our food goes straight to the trash, how can we prevent food waste?
I'm not here to finger-point or judge, I've been part of the problem as well. It's like we decide to temporarily house food in our fridge rent-free on its journey between the store and the trash, throwing away our hard-earned money. But it's well past time to become part of the solution.
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Food waste is an environmental and financial issue. While extreme hunger is a problem in many countries around the world, others are throwing a third of their food supply in the trash. Personally, I feel like I've failed at planning and organizing my week whenever I end up tossing out perfectly good food, and that combined with the environmental impact has motivated me to change my habits.
Determine what ends up in your trash every month. Is it the unopened bags of wilted spring mix or quarter of a pack of cheese? This is a basic first step to stopping food waste in your home: Know what you're not using so you know know what to stop buying -- but it's easier said than done.
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We generally start planning our groceries by thinking of what we're going to cook and eat for the coming week. This process ideally happens at home, but it also happens when we're already at the store. Maybe you're walking around the produce aisle and decide to be extra-healthy this next week and buy several bags of salad mix, only to have life happen in the following days and then you find yourself throwing away the untouched food when it's gone bad.
And it doesn't only happen with produce; 30% of the total food loss in 2010 consisted of meat, poultry, and fish. These items notoriously make up the most expensive food group in the American diet. So food waste isn't just an environmental problem; it's a financial one as well, one that affects us all personally.
Different shopping habits may mean grocery shopping with convenience in mind, but you can do this without sacrificing health.
Like many other parents in the US, we don't have the village it takes to raise kids, so it's all on my husband and me. Food goes bad in the fridge because we forgot about it or we were too busy and didn't have time to cook it before the kids' bath and bedtime. So the convenience of ordering something often wins.
Meal planning doesn't really solve all these issues. While I've always loved cooking and still do, I've come to realize that making full meals from scratch multiple times a day every day of the week isn't something I can manage without failing to do something else for my kids. As a result, I've changed my shopping habits to include more convenient options that better fit my busy life.
This all seems easy enough, but it makes a real difference to my bottom line, my mental health, and the amount of food that goes to waste.
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This is where a freezer would be a lifesaver to prevent food waste, but you can't just freeze everything and continue buying the things you won't eat.
The foods that go bad the most often in my home are vegetables and chicken. Things like zucchini, carrots, peppers, and onions are quick to make a break for the trash can, only to be replaced the next week by the same items. With time, I've learned to not buy them unless I have a clear plan for a recipe that calls for them and the ones I do buy I gather and blend into sauce or soups when I see they're going unused.
If the mention of meal kits makes your wallet wince, don't fret. There are affordable meal kits out there that can actually help you save money and reduce food waste.
I really love cooking and feeding my family whole foods but needed something convenient, and making boxed mac and cheese every night wasn't going to cut it. This is why I started using EveryPlate. It's an affordable, family-friendly meal delivery service that sends us enough ingredients for five recipes a week, each one for four people. Since me and my partner have three kids under six, it works out, sometimes leaving us with enough leftovers for a lunch for two.
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Having a meal kit service takes the guesswork out of what to make for dinner, and leaves me only worrying about groceries for breakfast, lunch, and snacks, but it also opens us up to new recipes and less food waste. Since we get exactly what we need for each recipe, we rarely throw any of the meal kit food away. If a recipe calls for a side of veggies that my kids won't eat, I know I can simply blend those and add them to a sauce or soup.
Meal kits often come with their own environmental concerns with increased plastic packaging, but recent studies show that meal kits actually leave a smaller carbon footprint than grocery meals.
Though overproduction is one main problem of food waste in the US, there's also the issue of consumerism. According to the American Psychology Association, consumersm is partly driven by constant demands on our self-control. Our attention is being pulled in all directions and drawn to buy things we don't need, including different food items that end up going uneaten.
Uur municipal solid waste generation per capita has increased by almost twice as much since the 1960s. A third of the food at retail and consumer levels ends up as waste, of which more than 55% is sent to landfills, while the rest finds other food management pathways such as combustion, composting, donation, and land application.
If we continue to buy foods regardless of whether they end up in the trash a week later, we maintain the demand for those foodstuffs, and the suppliers will maintain the same size of carbon footprint. Though the problem should be tackled by those suppliers first, we have control over what not to buy and how to manage the foods that do go uneaten.
Not buying the food items that constantly go to waste in your home will reduce your carbon footprint as well as saving you money.
Food waste includes any food that was not consumed: leftover food on your plate, uneaten prepared food, and expired uncooked foods. It happens in private homes, at retail stores that sell foodstuffs, and at restaurants and cafeterias.
Composting is one of the best ways to prevent your household's food waste from ending up in a landfill. If your city has a composting service, it's always a good idea to take advantage of it to reduce your carbon footprint and support the effort. Considering that only 4% of waste was composted out of 63 million tons of food waste collected in 2018, it's safe to say that composting has some room to grow yet.
If you have access to a garden and want to make your own compost, you can dispose of uneaten foods directly into a bin that you empty into a designated area of garden every few days.
While most food scraps can be composted, there some types of food you want to keep out of the compost bin: Uncooked meats, for example, can harbor bacteria like E. coli that can thrive in your compost bin and pile, making it easy for cross-contamination to happen and make you or family members sick. Meat can also draw unwanted animals to your composting pile, so don't add it to your compost. Many city composting services do accept meat scraps and bones, so check with your local city requirements.
There are mobile apps with the purpose of preventing food waste. Here are a few at the consumer, retail, and supplier levels: