10 ways to curb your food waste
Save money and lessen your environmental impact with these helpful ideas.
Sat, Nov 27 2010 at 10:29 AM EST
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Photo: dsllrninja/Flickr How much food do we waste in the U.S.? Here's the sad number: $54 billion worth of food each year. Ninety-eight percent of the food ends up in landfills. Think of what that’s doing to the environment. Think of what that’s doing to your food budget.
Here are 10 ideas to help you waste less food, help save the planet, and save you a little money.
- Put a container in your freezer to make leftover soup. Throw the odds and ends of vegetables, pastas, rice, beans and other things you might put in a soup. When you’ve got a substantial amount — make a one-of-a-kind soup by adding some organic chicken or vegetable broth and some seasonings. You’ll end up with something interesting.
- If you’ve got a small amount of leftover vegetables from two or three nights in a row — say peas from Monday, zucchini from Tuesday, and corn from Wednesday, on Thursday heat them up and let everyone choose which one they want with their dinner.
- Leftover white rice from Chinese food? Here are five ideas for using up leftover, cooked white rice.
- Keep a bread bag in your freezer to put the ends of loaves of bread. When you need fresh bread crumbs, defrost a few slices and use your food processor to make the bread crumbs.
- When bananas get too brown to eat, put them in the freezer. Find a good banana bread recipe and when you’ve got enough for the recipe, defrost and make banana bread. The bananas will look thoroughly disgusting once your defrost them, but they’ll make great bread.
- Let the kids eat leftover mac and cheese, pastas, soups or just about anything for breakfast if they want. This drives my husband crazy for some reason, but my kids love it.
- Share — especially after a party or holiday meal. Send it home with your guests or give a whole meal's worth to a neighbor.
- Freeze small portions of leftover meat for nights when not everyone is going to be home. I use these small portions for nights I know my husband won’t be home. I’ll defrost the meat and split it up between the boys and me — none of us are big meat eaters. I’ll add some pasta and vegetables and we’re all happy, and I didn’t have to cook a main dish.
- Refrain from cooking something new until something still edible is used up. We’re become accustomed to having a huge variety of food to choose from, but if we’re going to try waste less food, we’re going to have to get used to eating things until they get eaten up.
- Start a compost pile for the food that doesn’t get eaten so it doesn’t end up in landfills. It can go back to nourish the earth to grow more food.
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Comments
vibram five fingers
04/07/2011 02:20 AM
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Norman Bamberger
04/04/2011 01:44 AM
Thanks for the general Tips, mostly already done by me, but undoubtedly a lot of people can safe money by reading your article.
I am also concerned about Waste and believe that a lot of food is not kept in the fridge in the correct way, and hence either finishes-up being thrown away before consumption, because it is : Frozen and the greens are rotten Brown in colour, or the food is gone-Off, or the food is expired. or preserved the wrong way
Information is often not available.... More
Glenribbeen
03/25/2011 09:18 AM
Here's a good page on what, how and why.
http://www.mnn.com/your-home/organic-farming-gardening/stories/the-scien...
Peter O'Connor
03/25/2011 06:48 AM
I'd be very careful about compost pile from cooked food, cheese etc. Rats may seem extreme but there are worse. Make sure the container for the waste food is rat-proof at least and mix the food with un-cooked waste and paper (to aerate the pile). Try to 'turn' it regularly and eventually bury really deep in the veg garden/bin. Most advise against using cooked food at all especially meat because of pests but lso because of the "protein-trail". Think BSC and worry about it spreading via.... More
Fred McDonald
03/25/2011 04:24 AM
Handy tips ... since I use some of them already.
But don't forget the cost factor. If you are in the workforce, your time is expensive. Consider the time to do some of these things, versus the money you could make in the same time. Wasting your time is just as much a form of environmental damage as throwing out a half-eaten pizza.
The best reason for reusing leftovers *is* economics, but not exactly in the way people usually mean. Leftovers not only cost a huge amount to get to.... More
Rose Marie
04/03/2011 18:16 PM
What are we willing to be inconvienced for and allow ourselves to be uncomfortable for?
The environmental degradtion of our earth requires that we be willing to use our time and money to for efforts such as composting, not wasting food, recycling, hanging out clothes instead of using the dryer, advocating for environmentally friendly laws.
How much time do we spend watching TV? Usually it is not a trade off between work time and time doing environmentally friendly actions but.... More
Ron of Ronkonkoma
03/25/2011 09:05 AM
I agree with your premise that your time and my time is valuable- this is why my family no longer returns beverage cans for five cents a piece (we still recycle them, of course). My time, however is not 'a form of environmental damage'. I have a compost pile, make soups from leftovers, and other suggestions above. These actions do not make me lose worktime. Are you suggesting I should be working instead of cooking? Leftovers do not cost a 'huge amount', they're basically free.
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03/25/2011 02:13 AM
am so appreciative of these varied resources that have been published for anyone’s benefit.
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Donna Brown
03/24/2011 22:54 PM
Our dogs look forward to leftovers too! After about 72 hours leftover meat, pasta and milk go out to the dogs. They look forward to these treats! The vegetable and fruit peels and the like go out to the compost. None of our food gets in landfills!
Leslie
03/25/2011 05:02 AM
never have to be creatively reorganized. I have three teens and never have leftovers.On the rare occasion the dinner table is left with something, it won't be in the fridge the next morning. I have my own human compost machines,lol!
foxaz
03/24/2011 18:48 PM
Put the leftovers in a blender, blend til smooth. Add rolled oats, bread crumbs, spices...
When it's burger consistency, just make patties and fry- Presto! A completely new meal!
Evan Benz
03/24/2011 18:07 PM
If you stay single, chance's are the only food you have in the house is a pint of Hagen Daz, a couple bottles of liquor, a 6 pack of light beer, some potato chips, a box of White Castles, and a assorted fruit platter.
You all lucky to be married, I'm not too sure what I would think of a girl all breeding worms ???
Get up the next morning, cook her some eggs and toast.
She'd be like " No, don't throw out the egg shells , Honey ! "
Then you know when your single, it's.... More
Peter O'Connor
03/25/2011 09:16 AM
Actually it was (partly) her dedication to her tiny allotment that made me fall!
Glenribbeen
Jim
03/24/2011 14:32 PM
If you have leftovers all the time, you are cooking and wasting too much.
Leftovereater
03/24/2011 16:49 PM
I have leftovers all the time because I don't want to cook for every meal. I make enough for 2-3 meals so I can take lunch to work and have a quick meal in the fridge when I need one. I don't waste any food and I get a reasonable return on my time in the kitchen.
greenfingersmum
03/23/2011 12:25 PM
See my blog on using sprout tops
http://greenfingersmum.blogspot.com
Theresa
03/23/2011 10:58 AM
When shopping, use a weeks worth of menus with a recipe list to avoid buying extra/odd food that can deteriorate before use.
Sean
03/21/2011 13:58 PM
1. Stuff we eat... hmmmm
2. Stuff that can be boil to make stock (and the composted)... hmmmmmmmm
3. Stuff that must be composted now or thrash (very little).
Leslie
03/21/2011 12:33 PM
Remember that meat and bones do not go into a compost pile!
Sean
03/21/2011 13:56 PM
Meat (chicken, fish, pork, beef etc.) and all derived products including dairy and egg products do not go in the compost! Why? Smell and not safe. In short just compost veggies.
Julie
03/21/2011 11:17 AM
Things we don't finish (ends of stale bread, leftover rice or veggies, etc) all go to our chickens...who repay us with fresh eggs! Even with a small flock, it's a great trade off!
Tom
12/03/2009 13:55 PM
Keep a composting worm bin going at home. Your food waste fed to the worms is later harvested as the best manure ever, vermicaste.
Davis
03/24/2011 16:42 PM
I started a blog on how to compost with worms you can follow along and learn as I do for those that are interested.
http://vermiculture.tumblr.com/
