To continue my efforts to live more sustainably, I've focused my attention on tackling our family's food waste. While I don't feel like my family has been super wasteful when it comes to food, we've definitely tossed leftovers and expired food in the past. My goal has been to eliminate as much food waste as possible.
Here are a few tips and tricks that have helped my family out:
Buy Only What You Can Eat
This sounds so simple, but can be really difficult! Grocery stores can be so tempting. That's why I always meal plan and make a list of exactly what I need before I head to the grocery store. Poor Archer and Lyla have to hear me say, "Not today," several times each trip when they try to get me to buy random stuff. But I'm a stickler for only buying what's on my list. I also try to find ingredients that will carry over to other meals if there are leftovers. For example, if I am making chicken noodle soup, I can use some leftover chicken to make chicken nachos.
I also tend to just cook and bake the foods I already know how to make. That way I don't have to buy a bunch of ingredients that I will only use a little bit of and then leave to spoil in the back of my pantry. Speaking of my pantry, it's pretty small. It's just one cabinet with four roll-out drawers. This also helps me not buy too much since I don't have a lot of space to house it.
Figure Out How To Properly Store Your Food
There are lots of little tricks you can do to make your food, especially your produce, last longer. You can store cut up celery and carrots in jars of water to extend their life. I keep lettuce in a sealed container with a damp cloth on top to keep it fresher and crisper longer. It's better to stick berries in the fridge without washing them until you are ready to eat them. Apples and citrus will keep longer if you refrigerate them. Tomatoes do best if left out of the refrigerator. Once avocados ripen, you can put them in the refrigerator and they'll keep for days! Dry goods should be kept in airtight containers.
Make Use Of Your Freezer
One thing that has helped me prolong our food and keep things from going to waste is to use my freezer more. You can freeze a surprising amount of items. I like to make homemade buttermilk biscuits, but don't want the hassle of making them all the time, so I quadruple my recipe and freeze a bunch. All you have to do is flash freeze them before storing them. Just set them out on a plate so they aren't touching and stick them in the freezer. After about an hour, you can put them all together in one container and store them in your freezer. I also do this with cookie dough balls. You can even bake these items while they are frozen just by adding a couple of minutes to the bake time.
I don't know about you, but sometimes I don't really enjoy eating the same thing for days on end. So if I'm going to be making a pot roast or something that will yield a lot of food, I'll use half and then freeze half to use at a later date. I love using jars to freeze meat. Just make sure to let things cool to room temperature before putting the lid on it and don't overfill it before putting it in the freezer so you don't end up with a cracked jar. I've been using jars for years and have yet to have anything crack. I also really enjoy using Stasher bags (reusable silicone bags) to store things in the freezer.
*I should point out that I know eating meat is not a very sustainable practice. Maybe one day our family will cut out more meat from our diet, but we're not there yet. I do get our meat from local farms, so that does help a bit. I'm reminded of the quote by zero waste chef Anne Marie Bonneau whenever I feel guilty about eating meat: "We don't need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly."
Buy In Bulk
One way to eliminate some of the packaging involved with food is to buy in bulk. At one of my local grocery stores (Sprouts-I believe they have locations in several different states), they have bulk bins full of dry goods, baking goods, dried fruits, nuts and candy. I bring in my own little canvas bags, fill them up and then store them in old salsa jars at home. This way, I don't have boxes and bags to dispose of after we've eaten everything up.
When I do buy items that come with packaging, I opt for the largest-sized amount that will actually get eaten. For example, Archer adores Cheeze-Its. Instead of buying the pre-portioned individually wrapped kind, I opt for the large family size box and divvy it up myself at home.
Consider Your Portions
I've tried to do a better job of cooking the correct portion of food for each meal. I always used to make way too much pasta when I was making a pasta dish. And I would save the extra cooked noodles and then end up throwing it away after it sat in my fridge for a week. So now I cook only what I need and resist the temptation to add "just a few more noodles, just in case."
I also try to portion out food on my family members' plates according to what I know they'll likely eat. I err on the side of too little since they can always ask for more. I know Archer will likely only eat the one required bite of pasta I put on his plate and not much more, whereas Lyla will eat a big heaping pile and then some.
Compost
One of the best ways to prevent food waste, reduce the production of methane and end up with an end product that will make your garden happy is to compost. I've been composting my food scraps for a few years now and am happy to report it's simple and easy to keep up with! I plan to write a a post about my composting experience soon since I used my compost to plant my garden this spring.
Donate Or Offer Up Food You Won't Eat
If you end up with food that you know you won't eat and it's unopened and not expired, consider donating it to your local food bank. Or you could ask other family members or neighbors if they would like it. I love to bake, but don't need to eat entire loaves of bread or batches of cupcakes, so I often share with our neighbors. I've spoken before about Buy Nothing Groups (you can find your group by searching "Buy Nothing Group + your city" on Facebook or there is a new app you can download from the App Store or Google Play) and this is also a good way to offer up food you won't eat. In my group, people will give away food that's been opened and people are generally okay with that as long as you disclose that information up front.
So these are my best ideas for preventing food waste. I'm so proud of my family for taking these steps with me to prevent food waste. We're not perfect, but being more mindful has certainly improved our behaviors around wasting food. Let me hear your tips and tricks! What other habits can I adopt to help eliminate food waste?
