How Can I Waste Less?
“Up to 40 percent of the food in the United States is never eaten. . . . Most wasted food ends up in landfills, where it generates methane, a greenhouse gas that is up to 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.” – National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) on Food Waste
Mindful Food Consumption
The biggest way to reduce your food waste is to buy less in the first place. That means less impulse shopping and more intentional shopping. Our eyes really are usually bigger than our stomachs, so if we go food shopping and buy what looks good to us at the moment, that often means buying much more than we can eat before food spoils. Buying what you need is key!
A good way to buy what you need is to use a shopping list and stick to it. Keep a list tacked onto your refrigerator, so that when you use something up, you can jot it down. That takes the guesswork out of shopping.
Another way to buy what you need is to plan your meals ahead of time. Write down any ingredients you don’t already have, and then stick to that list. If you have standard items that you truly need to purchase every time you shop, let those head your list.
Here are a couple of short videos by OCRRA on how to end food waste through meal planning and other tips, and one on how to best understand date labels.
A Note on Plastic
While you’re at it, don’t forget to shop with reusable bags. Made from fossil fuels (increasingly, from fracked gas), single-use plastic grocery bags are used, on average, for only 12 minutes before being disposed of or stuffed in a drawer. While you’re at it, try to buy products with minimal packaging and as little plastic as possible. Also, consider skipping the plastic bags in the produce section—most produce at the store has gone through many hands and spent time in heavily-used crates and trucks, so bagging it in the store is a bit of a “fruitless” endeavor, in terms of keeping the produce safe from dirt and other contaminants.
You can learn more about the plastics crisis on the United Nations Environment Programme’s informative webpage, Our Planet Is Choking on Plastic. If you’ve got lots of single-use grocery bags deep in a closet somewhere in your house, here’s a website that tells you where they can be recycled, and here’s another that turns recycled plastics into outdoor products.
For more ideas, check out these “15 Quick Tips for Reducing Food Waste and Becoming a Food Hero” from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, or “Reducing Food Waste: Eight Tips for Home Cooks” from the NRDC.
Of course, generating some amount of food waste or table scraps is inevitable. Composting your food scraps is an environmentally friendly way to “re-use” them! Click on the “Composting” tab to find out more.
