Planet Friendly Eating
Action 6: Cut your home food waste
Americans throw out $218 billion of food each year. Most food waste goes to landfill where it emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Moreover, all the labor, fresh water, fertilizers, processing, and transportation that went into growing or preparing the food is wasted.
Here are some ideas:
- Plan your meals to minimize over-purchase of perishable items.
- Many perishable items can be frozen to be eaten later such as raw broccoli and carrots (but not lettuce), cooked grains, bread and beans.
- Incorporate leftovers into new dishes, such as roasted vegetables on a salad.
- Mark a shelf or basket in your fridge “Eat First.”
- Store leftovers in glass containers so you can see what you have
- Eat the leftovers that you bring home from restaurants.
- Use vegetable scraps to make broth to cook grains, beans or other dishes.
- Consider buying imperfect produce at the grocery store so it doesn’t end up in the landfill.
- Research how to store food for optimum freshness and food safety.
- Compost all food scraps and food waste.