Sustainable Food Teach-Out
Track Your Waste and Make A Plan
3 minutes
Why: About 40% of all food grown in the USA is thrown away. It decomposes in landfills and creates methane gas. Understanding and reducing your food waste is one meaningful way to limit your environmental impact. It also gives you a chance to be really thoughtful about the food you buy.
Track and think: One easy way to track your waste is with your phone camera. Snap a quick photo each time you throw away food. At the end of the week, scroll through the images and use the next section to inspire some strategies for reducing your food waste.
Then what:
Create a shopping list as a way to avoid overbuying or buying food that you may not eat.
Freeze excess food for later use.
Check out this article, “Food Expired?”, that describes the differences between “use by,” “sell by,” and “best by” before deciding to discard food.
Buy food that doesn’t look perfect. Often food that does not look “nice” is tossed out by stores that are not able to sell it. See this optional resource for getting ugly vegetables for less and an optional article about ugly fruits and vegetables debut in mainstream grocery stores.
Make portions smaller and eat leftovers. Instead of tossing out unfinished food, freeze the food that you are not able to finish.