How to Reduce Food Waste

Easy Ways to Waste Less and Save Money – Reduce Food Waste

Most nations waste a lot of food.  Some of that waste is unavoidable – food spoiling through not being sold in time, incorrect storage during transport from harvest to table, power outages affecting refrigerators and freezers, the list is endless.  But some can be avoided, and in this blog I’ll show you some easy ways to reduce food waste.

But first……

Why Is Food Waste Bad?

In general, a lot of water and oil go into producing our food, for growing crops and feeding and watering livestock, as well as transportation, packaging, storing and so on.   When that food is wasted, those resources were used and paid for, for nothing.

Plus, most of that wasted food goes into landfill, where it takes up space and produces methane – a greenhouse gas.

How Much is Wasted?

It’s difficult to get accurate figures per country, but as a generalization, the more developed the country, the more is wasted.  According to journalist Jonathan Bloom, Americans waste about 40 percent of their food.  (Side note: The UK is also bad with between 30 and 40 percent).  Also according to Bloom, this waste costs $240 billion annually in the US.

That means it costs all of us money, as well as wasting precious resources.

Some Good but Difficult Suggestions to Reduce Food Waste

Some of the suggestions I’ve read struck me as being quite impractical, although obviously well-meaning.  For example:

• Grant tax deductions to farms which donate food.
• Harvest everything we grow, then redistribute the excess to non-profits to give to the hungry.
• Restaurants and supermarkets donate all their excess to hunger-relief agencies.

These are all good ideas, however, please excuse my cynicism because I can’t help but feel that it could be more expensive to do these, than to throw the food away!  Food is perishable….    Plus they can be logistically difficult and sometimes just plain hard to implement.  But perhaps when the huge cost of waste is factored in, some of these initiatives will in fact be more viable.  So perhaps I should be more positive about these options.

More Workable Solutions to Reduce Food Waste?

Here are ideas I think are easy to implement.   Although unfortunately they don’t redistribute the waste, they do focus on reducing the waste in the first place.

• Offer more choice in restaurant portion sizes
• Make doggy bags cool, or at least commonplace.
• Buy less food for home.  Plan meals a week ahead, and make a detailed shopping list – check your current stocks so that you don’t buy duplicates.
• Serve smaller portions. Give friends and family a bit less food to start, and have them go back for seconds. Using smaller plates helps.
• At a buffet meal in a restaurant, serve yourself smaller portions and go back more frequently (again, use smaller plates).  That way, you’re more likely to eat everything on your plate, instead of leaving wasted food.
• Eat leftovers. Save time and money by keeping the excess from your restaurant and home meals. You can often repurpose them into a new meal.
• Keep your kitchen organised and tidy.  Cluttered fridges, freezers and cupboards cause casualties and duplicates.   Keep a “use-it-up” shelf, and put newer groceries in the back to push older foods to the front.
• Communicate to kids that food isn’t something to be squandered.
• Home composting is another great alternative – your food waste ends up as gorgeous soil improver for your garden.  I recently visited my sister in the UK.  Her local council gave compost bins to each house which they collect each week.  The council use the food waste compost to maintain their parks and gardens, and refuse collection for landfill has been significantly reduced.

Avoiding throwing out food that could have been eaten will save you money and help reduce landfills and gas emissions.