10 Ways to Reduce Food Waste At Home
When you throw out food, it ends up in a landfill. Duh, right? Except I bet most of us don’t really think about that when we toss a head of wilted romaine in the bin, which is why 27% of all food we bring into the house ends up in the trash. (That’s the official number; I bet the real number is much higher.) Once in the trash, it doesn’t “biodegrade”—mainly because it’s in a landfill, where it produces methane as it decomposes. Since we like to live as clean as we can over here in No More Dirty Looks land, here’s a list of ways to reduce the food you throw out, and what to do with it if it really is past its prime. (Bonus below: A delicious recipe.)
1. Freeze your food scraps. I use this silicone Fuccillo bin (pictured) for all my scraps and food that goes bad, and I love it. I used to use a pyrex bowl but this was problematic because everything stuck to it, making the task of chipping away at frozen produce scraps unpleasant and difficult. I would sometimes have to let it thaw to get it out of the bowl, which defeats the purpose of freezing it in the first place, yes? Yes. And then I discovered this genius bin. Nothing sticks to it, I can easily remove my scraps, and then I bring them to the farmer’s market where they can be composted and turned into fertilizer.
2. Sign up for a CSA. Lots of people say CSAs cause them to waste more food not less, but for me, when I am forced to think about the actual farm with actual farmers who are harvesting my food, I am much less inclined to let it go to waste. For the uninitiated, here’s how a CSA works: You sign up (and pay in advance) for 22 weeks of fresh produce and fruit. Then, in the summer, you start getting your yields either delivered to your house or at a pickup location near you. (To find a CSA in your area, click here.) Mine averages out to less than $20 a week for more vegetables and fruit than a girl knows what to do with. But wait! That doesn’t mean you get to throw out the extra. Read on.
3. Share. A no-brainer, but in our I’ve-never-met-my-neighbors world it can be hard to remember. If you have too much food, you are in the very lucky minority in this entire freaking world, and you shouldn’t let it go to waste. Instead, bring some to a friend, throw a dinner party, or bring it to your office for your coworkers—before it spoils. People will happily take plump strawberries off your hands; your wilted mustard greens, probably not.
4. Play Top Chef in your kitchen. The secret ingredient is whatever you’re thinking about chucking because a) you don’t know what to do with it (oh hey, garlic scapes), or b) you don’t like it. Commit to never throwing out produce, and then get creative. A few weeks ago I got some scapes and decided on a whim to blanch them then turn them into a kind of pesto. It was a recipeless experiment and guess what? Super tasty! (If you want to try: a bunch of scapes, blanched for 3 minutes; throw them in the blender with a few glugs of olive oil, salt, pepper, juice of one lemon, and parmesan—or nutritional yeast if you’re vegan—and voila! Great with salmon, eggs, other veggies, pasta, etc.)
5. Make pickles. Last week, my friends and I took a class with pickle man Bob McClure at Brooklyn Kitchen. We all have CSAs and it seemed a good skill to have to reduce waste. Also, then you get to eat pickles. I spent Sunday pickling red onions, beets, lemons and cucumbers at my friend Erika’s house and in just four hours we produces 17 jars, some of which was sourced from what we had lying around in our fridges. You don’t want to go making pickles willy-nilly, though. Take a class or get a book, and learn how to sterilize your jars properly.
6. Make juice. Before it wilts or spoils, throw your produce in the blender and make a juice. Juicing is expensive, which is why I’ve avoided getting too into the whole thing, but if you have stuff that will otherwise end up in a landfill, why not put it in your body instead? Experiment with different combinations and worst case scenario, it sucks and you flush it down the toilet. (Don’t do that, though. Just plug your nose and drink it!)
7. Find places that will make use of your waste. Lots of farmers markets have food-scrap collections that take your waste and turn it into black gold (fertilizer, friends). The June issue of Prevention magazine had a list of places that will take your waste off your hands, gratis, so cop that issue. And if you’re lucky enough to live in a place like Washington, DC, you can reach out to Compost Cab.
8. Shop like a Parisian. This is how I grew up eating. We never had one of those insanely stocked fridges; we had the basics, and then my mom would pop down to the fish guy or the grocery store before supper to get whatever she felt like making that night. I understand that this doesn’t work for everyone, but we were a household with two hungry kids (and, often enough, our hungry friends) where both parents had full-time jobs, and we made it work. Maybe you can’t do this every day, but you can do it a couple times a week? I don’t know.
9. Store it properly. I am not great about this, but I know it to be true: By storing your food properly in the fridge with reusable produce bags and glass, you can seriously extend the life of your food.
10. Cook it, then freeze it. This is another obvious one that sounds like more of a pain than it is. I did this last week with spinach: Steamed it (5 minutes), chopped it (1 minute), let it cool (passive time; doesn’t count), then bagged it and put it in the freezer (30 seconds).
What tips do you have for reducing food waste in your house?
Let me just say that Siobhan found garlic scapes that I had forgotten about in my fridge and she had the genius idea of pickling them. 100 % they would have otherwise met an untimely death in my garbage. I will try our pickled scapes and report back.
We live in Oregon and are able to recycle our stale fruits and veggies into our green lawn recycling bin.
Thank you for the idea of checking to see if the farmers market takes food waste to make fertilizer. We would like to buy a composte, but for now giving it to a farm would be a good idea to make use of old food.
We are blessed to have curbside composting here in the city of Seattle. For those who don’t have this option, a home food digester is great for those with some yard space (http://seattletilth.org/learn/resources-1/compost/HomemadeFoodDigester.pdf/view), while for apartment dwellers a small worm bin (http://seattletilth.org/learn/resources-1/compost/otsbinplans/view) can handle at least some of their kitchen waste. Worms don’t like to get too warm (or too cold), so this works best with a balcony. You’ll still have to find alternatives for your meat and dairy, but you’ll make a sizable dent and end up with some great fertilizer for your garden.
I actually save every little scrap of waste when I am preparing vegetables (carrot peels, kale nubs, the base of the celery stalk, etc.) that would normally be thrown away. I freeze them in a large ziplock and when it has reached its maximum capacity I put all of the scraps with a couple of garlic cloves, some onion, salt, pepper, and bay leaves in a pot of water and let it boil until everything is cooked. After that I strain it and voila! I have fabulous vegetable broth that I can use in tons of dishes in the coming days.
This is a great post – thank you!!! I have recently been on a real drive to lessen my food waste – partly because of the guilt of throwing out food that was perfectly good and would have been so welcome to some people who don’t have it in abundance, and partly because I’m throwing my hard earned cash out with it. I have been approaching it in more of the “Parisian” way and kind of budgeting out my meals with advance planning, but the ideas of pickling (yum!), juicing and the possibility of a farmers’ market compost are great. I will have to check out where in Manhattan I can find one of these composts… I’ve also had success with the make-it-up-as-you-go-along process – I clear out veggies on the cusp of rotting and make soup / pasta / some sort of concoction to eat with rice. A few spices added to the mix and even someone as culinary-challenged as myself can make a healthy dinner.
@ Moksha. That’s a great idea, I’m going to start doing that (but damn NYC freezers are so small).
I’m all about popping by the store more times during the week to make my meals. The food is fresher, and less goes to waste FOR SURE. There are two grocery stores on my way home from work, as well as a farmers market OUTSIDE my place of employ once a week, so there are really no excuses for me!!!
@ Naomi, there is a sight where you can drop off compost at the Green Market in Union Square every monday, wednesday, friday, and saturday. If that’s not your hood, http://www.grownyc.org/compost/locations maybe you can find a closer location there!
I have always been a culprit of hating food waste which has caused me to overeat on several occasions. My mom has almost always had a compost for our produce waste and so I didn’t realize how much the bits and pieces of veggies can add up until I had my own apt. Now that I live in DC I scoured the internet for ways to compost because I refused to waste any more food. That’s when i found out about Fat Worm, LLC (www.fatwormcompost.com/) that happily provides apartment dwellers who physically can’t compost, and households who just want to compost, with a bin to store your compostables in until the designated pick up date. They store the compost on site to reduce the number of trips to PA where they contribute all of DC’s food waste into an industrial composting facility which in turn provides mulch and soil for use to make those veggies we’ll throw back into it again the following year, probably. I hope there are other urban composting options like this one in cities like NYC. Our farmer’s markets here do accept compost from what I’ve heard so it is another great option – thanks for this article, it’s a much needed reminder in these parts of the world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great suggestions, except the shopping like a Parisian thing one. Been doing it for years (lack of time to plan in advance) and I dream of the day when I’ll be able to finally fill up the darn fridge and not waste my time at the grocery store every other day.
love the first one; thanks for the tip on appropriate containers! :)
I feed the ducks, birds, squirrels, (NYC wildlife) any stale bread, cereal, nuts etc… Also, although I’m vegetarian, I feed my cats a raw food diet, and I give any leftovers to the street kitties.
Thanks for the other ideas. I will look into composting at the farmer’s market.
Here in Memphis we’re fortunate to have Urban Farms Memphis, a large community farm right in the center of our city. They love taking food scraps to make compost both to use in the gardens and to sell to raise money to keep the farm running. I keep a large sealed bucket in my fridge and dump food scraps in it, when it gets full I take it to the farm. Because the bucket is sealed there are no smells or bugs or anything nasty to deal with. It’s such an easy thing to do!
In fact, there was an article in this morning’s paper about how many local memphis restaurants are saving all their food scraps for the urban farm to compost (one more reason to love Memphis restaurants!) Here’s the link in case anyone’s interested in reading: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/jun/21/recipe-for-recycling/
I’m coming over to your apartment to have pickles!
@ Lindsey – thanks so much for this, I’ll start this week!
@Moksha, this is unrelated to food waste, sorry! But in a past post, you mentioned using argan and tea tree oil as a blemish remedy. Do you mind telling me how you do this? I just ordered both. Spot treatment? All over? Only at night? Thanks, and sorry NMDL ladies, for veering off-topic.
@Tara Yeah you are!
ooh I wanna learn how to pickle!! @moksha what a great idea! I love learning knew things. Im going to ask my farmer’s market peeps here in Boston if I can bring my scraps. Thanks for the great tips everybody.
How do I join a CSA near NYC. I live in Jersey city and looked up a couple of places in NJ, but they seem a little far to drive. Also do they (the CSA’s near NYC) deliver the produce?
Thanks :-)
@Lindz you should totally learn to pickle!
@all of you, you’re awesome and have smart tips!
@Bella I’m not sure! If you work in the city you could also look for some near your office. I’d think there are a lot in JC though. Mine is in Brooklyn and the pickup is close to my house, like two blocks. There are also things like “Urban Organics” which deliver boxes to your house. I know Groupon even had a deal with them recently. Good luck! Let us know if you find one.
I use all the scraps that are left over from juicing for smoothies. When I juice apples, cukes, celery, brocoili, and lettuce A LOT of all the great fiber is leftover in the form of shredded up skins and stalks and such. I just take it and throw it in my blender and then add fruit, water and such and make it into a smoothie and put in the fridge for later.
If I am in a hurry I just put all the leftover in a bag and freeze it and throw it in the blender frozen next time I make a
smoothie!
Bella-
I just saw your comment about CSA’s in Jersey City-I am the organizer of the Journal Square CSA, and we are still accepting members for the remainder of the season. We have a great organic farmer (Nolasco’s Farm) about 50 miles away. You can find more info and pictures of the farm at http://journalsquarecsa.weebly.com. You can also email me at journalsquarecsa@gmail.com and talk to me more about it. Thanks!
@ Katie,
Awesome. Thanks for the info. I shall pass this along to my friends as well :-)
Great! Feel free to stop by a pick-up one Monday to check out the quality/quantity of vegetables. Details are on the site at http://journalsquarecsa.weebly.com or you can contact me directly.