Wilted lettuce, moldy cheese, spoiled meats, uneaten leftovers and parts of vegetables that are tossed out during preparation are all examples of wasted food.
Food waste not only means wasted money, but it is also a burden on our environment. That’s because wasted food ends up in landfills where it breaks down and forms the greenhouse gas methane.
“In the U.S., more than a third of the food that’s produced is never eaten,” says Sara Burnett, executive director of ReFED, a national nonprofit dedicated to ending food loss and waste.
While food loss and waste occur across the supply chain — from damaged fruits left in the field to unsold food in grocery stores — nearly half of the wasted food in this country happens in individual household, she says. The average American family of four wastes $1,500 worth of food each year.
Preventing food waste is also a top priority of restaurants, which represents 15% of total surplus food, according to ReFED. In fact, “Low-Waste Menus” is one of the top global restaurant trends identified in the Future Menus 2024 report by Unilever Food Solutions.
Restaurants are working to reduce food waste through smaller menus and portion sizes and by using all parts of a plant, or what’s called root-to-stem cooking, says Brandon Collins, executive chef at Unilever Food Solutions North America.
When food gets wasted, so do all of the resources that went into producing it, such as water, land and energy. It’s also food that could have gone to the one in eight households in the U.S. who are food insecure, or those who lack reliable access to affordable, nutritious food.
Food waste expert Rosanne Rust, a registered dietitian and author of “Zero Waste Cooking for Dummies,” says it all comes down to three major steps: buy less, store it right, use it all.
[READ: How to Eat in a More Sustainable Way]
5 Ways You Can Reduce Food Waste
Use these strategies to prevent food waste at home:
1. Make a plan
2. Know how to store
3. Use all parts of the plant
4. Embrace ugly and upcycled
5. Learn the labels
1. Make a plan
The first step in reducing food waste in your household is to assess what you have in your refrigerator, freezer and pantry to avoid buying food you already have, says Rust. After that, it’s about having a plan for every food item that goes into your shopping cart or comes into your kitchen.
“I like to have at least one day a week where there is no planned meal and I will simply use what I’ve got,” says Rust. “Look in the fridge, see what needs to get used — scraps, wilting vegetables, dairy near best-by dates — and create something.”
Keeping staples on hand like canned tomatoes, flatbreads, pasta, rice and quick protein sources like canned beans, eggs, frozen meat, fish or poultry can help create quick zero waste meals, she says.
Leftover bits can be scrambled into an egg, put on a pizza, or tossed into rice, pasta or other grains. Rust also recommends repurposing restaurant leftovers to reduce food waste.
Technology is helping to make it easier to reduce food waste. For instance, Oh a potato! weekly meal planner is a Chat-GPT-powered app that helps you find, save and plan recipes using ingredients you already have. Fridge Night is an app to help you track your food waste and set up a weekly “fridge night” to turn the food you already have into delicious meals.
[READ: Meal Planning Pro Tips From a Dietitian]
2. Know how to store
Properly storing food will help it last longer and taste better.
“The most important thing to think about when storing food is to prevent oxidation,” says Rust. The exposure to oxygen speeds up spoilage.
For instance, cooked leftovers, fresh meats and cheeses should be carefully covered and sealed, she says.
You might see different advice on how to store fresh produce, including soaking in water. Although Rust does not recommend this because that can be a breeding ground for bacteria, she says.
Most vegetables, especially those that can easily wilt like leafy greens, should go in the high humidity drawer in your refrigerator. Most fruits prefer lower humidity. Use the lever settings on the drawers to adjust air flow. For the low humidity setting, the window is completely open, for the high humidity setting, it’s completely closed.
Some fruits, including apples, pears, stone fruits and avocados, release ethylene gas as they ripen. This can make other produce ripen more quickly and potentially spoil faster. So store these fruits away from other produce.
Moisture will shorten the shelf life of fresh berries, so wait to wash them until right before eating, says Rust. It’s also generally best to store them in the package they came in, such as the plastic clamshells with a moisture-absorbing pad.
Freezing food before it spoils is a simple way to reduce food waste. If you don’t think you can finish a large container of berries or a big stalk of fresh broccoli during the week, consider buying frozen instead. Frozen fruits and vegetables are just as nutritious as fresh.
The FoodKeeper App can help you understand food and beverage storage to maximize quality and freshness.
[SEE: Fresh, Frozen or Canned: What Is Best?]
3. Use all parts of the plant
Fruits and vegetables constitute more than a third of total food waste. That’s because produce is perishable, so we often don’t use it before it goes bad. Another big reason is that we throw out edible parts of produce — skins, seeds, leafy tops and stems — that can be incorporated into meals.
“With the cost of produce rising year-on-year, it’s never been more important to make use of every last edible part of the ingredients we use,” says Collins. “Utilizing would-be waste provides excitement for customers and also forces us chefs to be more creative and adventurous.”
Chefs are increasingly adapting this root-to-stem style of cooking and it’s something you can do in your own kitchen.
Cores of cauliflower or broccoli stems that we often throw out can be turned into soups, says Collins. Carrot tops and beet greens can be added to a food processor for pesto.
It’s ok not to peel carrots, potatoes, eggplant, cucumbers and zucchini.
“Most of the time the pieces of the vegetable we remove actually have more nutrition than the item we are used to eating,” says Collins. Just be sure to rinse and vigorously scrub unpeeled vegetables before eating.
Collins also recommends pickling before produce goes past its prime. The basics of pickling are simple, he says. You need vinegar or another acid, water, kosher salt or sugar and the seasonings of your choice.
Lime pickled onions are one of his favorite pickled vegetables. To make them, here’s what you need:
— 1 red onion, sliced
— 2 limes, juiced
— 1 teaspoon kosher salt
Collins also enjoys pickling finely diced banana peels with vinegar, sugar and diced jalapeno for a mignonette sauce for oysters.
4. Embrace ugly and upcycled
Jackie Newgent, a plant-forward culinary nutritionist, cooking coach and author of “Big Green Cookbook,” encourages using blemished, bruised, scratched or “ugly” produce to help fight food waste.
“It might look funny, but it’s still 100% good for you,” she says. Overly ripe fruits and vegetables may also not look pretty, but that doesn’t mean they can’t taste delicious in recipes.
You can use wilting, browning or imperfect produce to make smoothies, quick breads, jams, sauces or soup stocks, she says.
Fruits and vegetables that are misshapen, discolored or too small often don’t make it on supermarket shelves, but there’s an ugly produce movement to encourage supermarket chains to feature imperfect fruits and vegetables so they don’t go to waste.
Specialty retailers like Imperfect Foods and Misfits Market sell boxes of ugly produce that can ship directly to your door.
Ugly produce is also showing up in snacks and other products, including Uglies Kettle Chips made with potatoes with slight imperfections, and Trashy Chips made with misfit vegetables. Both of these products are part of the growing upcycled trend, or using ingredients that would otherwise go to waste, such as leftover pulp from making cold-pressed juice or spent grains from the beer-making process.
5. Learn the labels
Research suggests food-date labels, such as “best if used by,” may be adding to the problem of food waste. Learning what these labels really mean can save you from throwing something away when it’s still perfectly good to eat.
Date labels are typically a guide for quality and freshness, not food safety, says Rust.
Even so, many people toss out food that has passed its date label. One problem is that companies use different language, such as “use by” and “enjoy by,” and state regulations vary. No wonder shoppers are confused. That’s why ReFED is calling for standardized date labels nationally.
Major food industry groups have endorsed “use by” to indicate when a product should be discarded for food safety reasons and “best if used by” to indicate that the date is about quality and the food can be consumed beyond that date.
“Bread is perfectly fine past that date, unless it has visible mold or an odor,” says Rust. “It may not be at peak freshness, but it’s safe to eat.”
Canned and boxed goods are also safe to eat past those dates, she says. The quality and flavor may not be as good, but safety is not an issue.
Instead of routinely throwing out foods past the date on the label, people should evaluate the products before eating, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Spoiled foods will develop an off odor, flavor or texture due to bacteria growth.
So use your best judgment: If a product looks good, smells good, tastes good and has a “best by” or “best if used by” label, it’s probably OK to consume, ReFED advises on its website.
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How to Reduce Food Waste in Your Kitchen originally appeared on usnews.com
