The Cardiac Cuisine

How to Reduce Food Waste

Filed Under: Kitchen Hacks

How to reduce food waste? The average American throws away 219 pounds of food a year. One third of all the food in the United States goes uneaten. The average family of four throws $1,500 worth of food in the trash every year. This is crazy!

How to reduce food waste. Wasted food piles up in landfills.

Such a huge amount of food ends up being wasted in landfills.

Table of Contents

1. Avoid buying too much

Plan your meals!!!! You can reduce food waste tremendously by eating what you already have in your fridge. Don’t go to the supermarket and buy new groceries until you’ve eaten up what’s already in your kitchen. If you only buy what you expect to use, you’ll be less likely to throw it away.

Only buy perishable items like fruits, vegetables and dairy when they fit into your weekly meal plan. Don’t buy foods that spoil quickly (like berries and avocadoes) unless you have a definite plan to use them.

2. Take inventory of your kitchen before shopping

To reduce food waste, look in your pantry and refrigerator first. Avoid buying more of what you already have. Plan meals around what you have already, and aim to use up what you already have before buying. I like to take inventory of my kitchen once a week.

Keeping your kitchen free of clutter makes it easier to see what you already have. When your fridge is too full, it’s hard to clearly see what’s already in there. Not being able to see your food makes it easier to forget about it. To avoid wasting food, it’s important to know which items you have on hand, when you purchased them, and when you need to use them up.

3. First in, first out.

When you buy new groceries, the new groceries go in the back. Bring older groceries to the front so you can use them up. If I buy a new can of beans, I’ll put it in the back of the pantry and bring older beans to the front so I won’t forget that I have them. If I buy a new container of yogurt, the new yogurt goes in the back while older yogurt comes to the front. Moving old food to the front ensures that older food gets used, not wasted.

4. Include quantities in your grocery list

Don’t just blindly buy “a bunch of avocadoes.” Because you’ve made a meal plan, you know how many avocadoes you’ll need this week. If you know you’ll need 5 avocadoes, write “5 avocadoes” in your grocery list. Buy that many, and only that many.

5. Be careful of “buy one, get one” deals

“Here’s a super-amazing bargain price on broccoli, but only if you buy five!” Buying perishable foods in large quantities is only “a bargain” if you’re actually going to be able to use all of that food before it spoils. Bulk-buying large quantities of perishable foods is generally a waste.

6. Write down the types of food that tend to go bad in your house

Writing down the types of food that tend to go bad in your house helps you figure out which foods to start buying less of. For example, if oranges are always spoiling in your fridge, the solution is to buy fewer oranges.

7. Reduce food waste by buying imperfect produce

So many perfectly good fruits and vegetables are discarded because of minor blemishes! This is such a waste.

8. Reduce food waste by using your freezer

Freeze it right away! Freezing is one of the easiest ways to preserve food. Chop it up before freezing to save time later.

Many vegetables will lose their crisp texture in the freezer, but this is OK. I keep celery in the freezer because I never use it up before it goes bad, and I only need celery for soups and stews. If you’re planning on turning it into soup or stew, texture doesn’t matter much. Tomatoes can be sauteéd or boiled before freezing for super-easy tomato sauces.

However, a word of caution: Don’t overstuff your freezer to the point where you don’t know what’s in your freezer. Don’t allow your fridge to become a morgue for forgotten food that’s destined for the trashcan. Once a week, take inventory of your freezer. Bring older items to the top, and plan meals around these foods. By keeping your freezer minimal and organized, it’ll be easier for you to keep a running mental list of what’s in there.

Use up frozen food before it gets freezer-burned! Even in the freezer, perishable foods like meat will eventually go bad.

I use the notes app on my phone to keep track of what’s in my freezer, but a whiteboard on your fridge might also be helpful.

10. Produce past its prime is still fine for cooking

If those apples are getting a little soft and bruised, make applesauce. Wilted vegetables? Time for a stir fry! Brown bananas? Banana bread! Banana ice cream! (bonus, bananas are sweeter past peak ripeness.) Overly-mushy and black avocadoes make great guacamole.

Even if a piece of produce is starting to rot, you’ll generally be fine if you cut off the rotten area and cook the rest.

You can eat onions, garlic, carrots, potatoes after they’ve started sprouting, but sprouting is a sign that time is running out and you need to eat the food ASAP. With potatoes, it’s important to remove the sprouts before eating.

11. Store your food properly

Proper storage can greatly extend the life of your perishable foods.

Reduce food waste with smart food storage:

  • Don’t store eggs and milk on the refrigerator door, as the door is the warmest part of the fridge. Eggs and milk last longer stored away from the door.
  • The lowest shelves of the fridge are coldest for meat, poultry, fish.
  • Be sure to maintain a temperature lower than 40F in the main part of your refrigerator.
  • Leafy greens, carrots, cucumbers go in the high-humidity drawer.
  • Veggies that tend to rot (mushrooms, peppers) go in the low-humidity drawer.
  • Store fruits and vegetables that release ethylene (apples, bananas, peaches, pears) away from other produce.
  • Fruits like apples, oranges and grapes can sit out at room temperature if you plan to eat them quickly, but they last a lot longer if you store them in the fridge. Apples can last up to 4 to 6 weeks in the refrigerator.
  • Tomatoes get weird in the fridge, so leave them out in a bowl on the kitchen counter.
  • Store potatoes, squash, onions in a cool, dark, dry place.
  • Avoid washing berries until you’re ready to eat them, as moisture encourages mold growth (also, raspberries and strawberries spoil fast!)
  • I also like to keep nuts and seeds on the door of the fridge. The cool temperature prevents them from going rancid before I can eat them.
  • Anything “oily” like flax, wheat germ, almond flour can go rancid before I have a chance to use it all up. Storing these items in the fridge really helps.
  • Always cover up butter and keep it away from the air. Butter can sit at room temperature for quite a while and be fine, but exposing butter to air will spoil it. Wrap it up in its paper wrapping, store it in a butter dish, keep the air away, and it will keep for quite a few months.
  • Avoid turning your brown sugar into a solid rock. Seal your brown sugar up tight with elastic bands and a clip, and seal it inside a zipper baggie. (You can revive brown sugar by putting a damp paper towel on top of a bowl of sugar microwaving it for 20 seconds at a time, breaking it up as you go, but this is a pain.)

12. “Best by” dates are just suggestions

The “best by” date is just a suggestion for optimal freshness, and you can feel free to ignore it. Most food will still be fine after the “best by” date (Smell it if you’re unsure. Don’t eat the food if it has a weird smell.)

Expiration dates mean different things

“”Best by, ” “sell by,” and “use by” all mean different things. The “sell by” date is for the grocery stores, for inventory purposes. The “sell by” date lets stores know how long to keep a certain item out on display.

Regardless of whatever the “sell by” date is on a carton of eggs, eggs will be safe in the fridge for about 4 to 5 weeks.

Food is generally not safe to eat after the “use by” date. Cook and eat refrigerated meat within 1 to 2 days after the “use by” date. After that point, it’s no longer safe to eat.

Give perishable items like dairy and nuts the sniff test. Milk and yogurt should still be safe to eat as long as it hasn’t developed a “sour” smell. Nuts and seeds are safe to eat as long as they don’t smell rancid (like oil paints).

Some food really lasts forever

Some items, like powdered milk, vinegar, honey, sugar, maple syrup, dried beans, dried pasta, oats, and white rice really never go bad and you can feel free to ignore the “best by” date.

  • Brown rice will eventually go rancid. If it smells like oil paints, don’t use it.
  • Honey and maple syrup will eventually crystalize, but you can revive it by putting your jar of crystalized honey or maple syrup in a bath of warm water until it liquefies again.

Most shelf-stable foods should be safe to eat indefinitely. As long as a can is in good condition (no rust, dents, or swelling) canned foods should last forever. Shelf-stable foods like cereals and cookies will eventually go stale and develop an “off flavor,” but they will remain safe-to-eat forever.

Learn more about food expiration dates at USDA.gov.

13. Eat the whole thing

Beet greens, radish greens, turnip greens are all edible. Don’t throw out the green tops! Put the radish greens in a salad, put beet greens in a stir fry, put turnip greens in a soup.

You don’t need to peel apples, potatoes, carrots, etc. The peels contain a ton of fiber and vitamins. Not peeling saves a ton of food-prep time, too!

Put broccoli stalks in your soups and stir fries.

Make soup with chicken carcasses and bones.

14. Reduce food waste by eating leftovers

Leftovers can keep safely for 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator. Don’t be afraid to eat food that hasn’t been freshly prepared! If you’re just going to throw the leftover food in the garbage, try making a second meal of it instead. Designate a certain night of the week to eat the food you’ve accumulated in the fridge.

American restaurant portions are insane and wasteful. Instead of letting the restaurant throw all that uneaten food away, pack it up and take it home. Eat it for lunch! Stretch it out for a couple more nights of dinner.

15. Be creative with leftovers

  • Stale bread can be French toast, croutons, or stuffing
  • Omelets, stir fries, pizza, tacos and fried rice are fantastic ways to use random vegetables
  • Make jam with excess fruit
  • Make pickles. Got watermelon rind? My grandmother used to make these amazing pickles.
  • Don’t toss out those pumpkin seeds when you’re carving jack-o-lanterns. Toast them!

16. Watch your portions

Be mindful of how hungry you actually are. I always love a good Las Vegas buffet, but they are temples to food waste! Avoid getting carried away with my-eyes-are-bigger-than-my-stomach syndrome. Overeating has a major impact on your health, and food waste has a major impact on the environment. Reduce food waste by keeping your portions in a healthy range; don’t overfill your plate with more than you can possibly eat.

17. Eat less meat

Meat is costly. Not only is it expensive to buy, but more importantly, it places a tremendous burden on the planet. Meat production uses up an excessive amount of grain, water and land. It takes seven pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef – what a WASTE!

Meat production has caused massive de-forestation in South America. Meat farms are also destroying native prairie land in the central United States. When we’re thinking about the future of humanity on this planet, meat just isn’t really a sustainable source of food at all. How many humans could we feed with the amount of grain it takes to raise a single cow to adulthood?

Cardiologists have arrived at a clear consensus that red meat is bad for your heart. If your physical health is your main concern, it’s best to limit the amount of meat you eat and replace it with leaner meats, or plant-based proteins like lentils, beans, tofu.

But, meat is an easy source of protein and my kids love it, so I buy it. As an apex predator, I don’t have a moral problem with raising animals for food, as long as it’s done sustainably. I like to eat meat “on the side,” as a condiment on top of my food rather than the main event of the meal. If I buy a big piece of meat, I like to repurpose it over the course of several dinners. A big pot roast or brisket can be tacos, pasta sauce and sandwiches. Try to stretch meat as far as possible for the sake of the planet, your wallet, and your health.

18. Eat sustainable seafood

Overfishing is a huge problem that’s destroying our oceans. Instead of eating endangered fish like bluefin tuna, Atlantic cod, pollock and Atlantic halibut, try eating more sustainable types of fish like Arctic char, Pacific salmon or haddock.

19. If you can’t save it, compost it

At least you’ll be able to keep your fruit and vegetable scraps out of a landfill. Compost is a nutrient-rich soil amendment that will reduce the need for fertilizers and pesticides in your garden. Plants grow more rapidly in compost-amended soil, and they pull more carbon-dioxide out of the air while they’re doing it! So, your food scraps won’t waste away as sludge in a landfill. Win!

20. Learn about where your food comes from

Respect it. Respect the process that goes into creating it. Respect the effort and resources that go into growing it, harvesting it, and getting it to the shelves in your supermarket. Get to know your local farmers. Support your local food producers. The more you know about where your food comes from, the less likely you are to view food as something “disposable.”

How to reduce food waste. So much food ends up in landfills!







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