Did you know that the average American family throws away over $1,600 of food each year? According to this infographic(PDF), roughly 90 billion pounds of edible food goes uneaten in the United States each year, an amount that is about 123 times the weight of the Empire State Building!
Here are a few tips to reduce food waste:
- Create a grocery game plan
Meal planning and shopping with a list can help you to “buy what you need and eat what you buy”. It can also help you eat more healthfully instead of opting for convenience meals that are high in fat, sugar and salt.
- Use canned or frozen fruits and vegetables
There are pros and cons to using canned and frozen items, but keeping these products on hand can help to increase the amount of fruits and vegetables you consume without concern for having to use them before they spoil.
- Use your freezer
Items that can be frozen include breads, fruits, vegetables, and leftovers – a great strategy to use when you have more perishable items on hand than you are able to eat. This guide from the National Center for Home Food Preservation provides tips for freezing fresh produce.
- Add fruits and vegetables to meals and snacks
Increase your fruit and veggie consumption while also using perishable items before they spoil. Vegetables can be added to soups, casseroles, pastas, sauces or omelets. Fruit can go into muffins, bread, pancakes or smoothies.
5. Store food correctly
It is unfortunate when good food goes bad and must be thrown away because it is unsafe to eat. Fortunately, the USDA, Cornell University and the Food Marketing Institute developed an app called “The FoodKeeper” to help individuals understand how to best store foods to maximize shelf life. The FoodKeeper tracks perishable item purchases, and it notifies users when items are nearing the end of their recommended storage time. This technology can be more reliable than the best by and sell by dates printed on products. A recent study from the Harvard Food Policy and Law Clinic(PDF) found that such dates are inconsistent, often designed to indicate quality as opposed to safety.
