As your grandmother has probably said to you many times – Don’t waste food!
Did you know that close to half of all food produced worldwide ends up either wasted or spoiled after production? It’s true. The amount of food waste produced globally each year is more than enough to feed the nearly 1 billion hungry people in the world. Scary isn’t it? Most people don’t realize how much food they throw away every day, from a few uneaten leftovers to a couple of spoiled produce, it all eventually adds up to a lot of wasted food. However, food also gets discarded outside of our homes, for instance in processing, transport, supermarkets, and restaurant kitchens.
Even though you might not think it, food waste actually affects you more than you think. It’s a no-brainer that when you throw your food, you’re also throwing away your money, but when you throw out food, all of the energy and resources that were used to grow, ship, package, and produce the food gets wasted as well. Just growing the crops requires an enormous amount of water. Approximately 25% of all the water used for agriculture is lost through food waste every year, that’s about 170 trillion liters!
And have you thought about what happens to food after it’s been tossed? All discarded food is sent to landfills, where it ends up rotting and produces methane gas. Next to CO2, methane gas is the second most common GHG (greenhouse gas). Humans are creating methane emissions a lot faster than the Earth can remove them, and sadly, methane levels have more than doubled over the last 150 years. In case you’re reading this and asking yourself ‘Why does it matter?’ – It matters because this is a big contributor to climate change, which is upon us now, and now is the time to get serious about the impacts of runaway GHG emissions.
We’re not suggesting that you should stuff yourself when you feel full to reduce food waste, that’s just silly. Luckily, there are many ways you can help cut the amount of food wasted with some simple tips, such as:
- Organizing your food – If you organize your fridge and pantry, you can draw attention to what items will be going bad first, that way you can make sure to use them before the expiry date hits.
- Planning Ahead – Try to plan out beforehand what meals you’d like to eat during the week. Make a shopping list, and buy only the ingredients you’ll need for those meals. Going to the supermarket with your list will prevent you from buying more food than you need.
- Don’t toss coffee grounds – Cyprus is a big coffee drinking country, a majority of people living in Cyprus generate a lot of coffee grounds every day. Instead of throwing these grounds always, try using them as a fertilizer for plants. Coffee grounds are high in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, which are nutrients that plants crave. Your plants will thank you!
- Look for some new recipes – There are tons of amazing recipe websites out there that allow you to search by ingredient. Check what food you already have at home and find out delicious new ways to cook those items. You’ll find some great smoothie recipes for those leftover fruits, or a delicious soup recipe you can make from your leftover vegetables.
- Get Creative – If you’re going to make something with blue cheese one night, make sure you have another recipe that week that also requires it. That way you don’t end up with half a container of blue cheese sitting in your fridge until it goes bad and eventually has to be thrown away.
- Open your fridge before you go to the store – You may have forgotten that you already have some vegetables you were planning to buy to use for dinner. Take 30 seconds to have a quick look at what you already have so you don’t end up buying the same items.
- Research what the best ways to store certain foods – Many people are unsure how to store fruits and vegetables, which can lead to premature ripening and, eventually, rotten produce. However, if you store your food properly, they will end up lasting longer. For instance, potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, cucumbers, and onions should never be refrigerated. These items should be kept at room temperature. And your asparagus, they will last a lot longer if you keep them standing upright in a little bit of water.
- Take your food home – If you go out to eat and didn’t manage to eat all of your meal, ask your waiter to put pack it for you. If you leave your uneaten food at a restaurant, they will just end up throwing it away. You may as well take it home with you so you can eat it later.
- Donate what you don’t want – No longer interested in all those kidney beans you bought on sale two months ago? Donate them to an organization that will be able to put them to good use.
- Buy only what you need & don’t go shopping on an empty stomach – Shopping on an empty stomach can lead to a lot of unnecessary impulse buying, which ends up leaving you with more food than you need.
- Make sure that the temperature of your fridge is set correctly – This doesn’t mean make sure that your fridge is cold. Even a fridge that’s too cold can cause certain foods to go bad faster than they should. This includes milk, cooked meat, and greens.
- Storing your food – If you know you won’t use something in the next few days, and it can be frozen, put it in the freezer until your ready to cook with it. Also, make sure you have a good set of reusable, air-tight containers to store your leftovers in so they stay nice and fresh.
- Bring your own lunch – This has a few benefits, when you take your own lunch to school or work, you not only save money and use your leftover food from the previous day, but it also can be a lot healthier than the food you would end up ordering outside.
- Be generous – If you leave town but still have good food in your kitchen, check with your neighbors if they need anything. Most likely they’ll be more than happy to take a couple of ripe tomatoes or those fresh herbs off your hands.
- Create an at-home spa – You can save money and avoid harmful chemicals found in skin care products by creating your own scrub or mask at home using your extra produce. This can be done using all sorts of different types of food – Such as honey, avocado, olive oil, sugar, cucumber, used tea bags, tomatoes, coffee grounds, apple cider vinegar, and oatmeal, just to name a few.
- Invite some friends or family over – Even though we try, sometimes we do end up buying more food than we think we need. If that happens and you think that the food will end up going bad before you’re able to enjoy it, call your friends or family over for a nice home cooked meal.
- Preserve it and enjoy later – There are many ways you can preserve your food. You can pickle, can, smoke, salt, vacuum-pack, jam, or dry out your fresh fruit, vegetables, and meats.
- Learn how to compost – Composting is the ultimate way to reuse and recycle. Read about how to properly compost your scraps – Your flower beds and vegetable garden will thank you!
Hopefully, you found some useful tips you’d like to try in your own home – Every little bit helps!
I am an avid “non food waster” and I was looking for even MORE tips. THANK YOU!
Dave