Some of you may remember that I wrote Food Waste Friday posts for almost two years, taking photos of the food that went bad that week and sharing about the process on The Frugal Girl, where she started the habit of taking a photo in an effort to be accountable and waste less. Wasting food is not only bad for your wallet, it’s bad for the environment because rotting food sitting in the landfill creates harmful greenhouse gases.
I stopped doing Food Waste Friday posts about a year ago, but I’m still down with the cause. I’m happy to say that we got into so many good habits that we rarely waste food, and when we do it’s usually produce that goes straight to the compost bin. My husband is on board with using what he refers to as the “slop pot” in the kitchen because the trash doesn’t smell as rotten and he doesn’t have to take it out as often.
Today I came across this article in US News & World Report, which shares Jonathan Bloom’s top 15 tips on how to waste less food. Jonathan is the journalist and blogger who writes the Wasted Food blog and last year published a book called American Wasteland. Jonathan is the go-to expert on the subject of food waste, and I highly recommend checking out his tips. We follow many of them in our household.
I think the things that helped us the most in our effort to waste less food were buying less in the first place, and establishing “zones” in the refrigerator to keep leftovers organized. I wrote about how we successfully began to use up leftovers efficiently in this post, about creating an “Eat Me” section in our refrigerator.
I encourage you to think about the issue of food waste. Whether your motivation is to save money or save the planet, the results are the same. And it’s all good.
Have you changed your habits with regards to food waste? Please share your tips, advice, and confessions in the Comments section.
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