In the United States alone, millions of tons of food are wasted every year.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, about 35 million tons. latest ReFED report. Near third ReFED, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing food waste, estimates that food grown and produced in the United States goes unsold or uneaten.
Half of all food waste comes from consumers. “It's either food—strawberries that go bad in your refrigerator—or food you ordered at a restaurant and only ate half of or didn't eat the leftovers when you got it home,” said Sarah Burnett, executive director of ReFED.
This waste wreaks havoc on our planet, she said, noting that 35 million tons of food waste “is equivalent to greenhouse gas emissions of 154 million metric tons of carbon, which is about the same as driving 36 million passenger cars a year, and consumes 9 trillion gallons of water, which is about 13 million Olympic-sized swimming pools.”
ReFED estimates that Thanksgiving Day alone 320 million pounds of food – In the amount of 550 million dollars – was thrown out in one day.
“The holidays are a time of gathering, celebration and abundance, and with that comes an unintended consequence—food waste,” Burnett said. “Thanksgiving, the biggest food waste day of the year, kicks off a season with an estimated 25% increase in household waste, including large amounts of food.
“Luckily, there are simple and practical ways to reduce waste in the kitchen and save money in the process!”
Waste isn't going down even as inflation and food prices rise, Burnett added, and the cost of waste is rising.
We owe it to our wallets and the planet to do everything we can to reduce any waste we can. Luckily, there are many ways to preserve fresh ingredients for long-term consumption—through drying, freezing, canning, pickling, baking, and reusing.
“When I was first learning to cook, if a recipe told me to cut off and throw away a stalk of cabbage, I did it. I didn't know it was edible, and I didn't know the consequences of throwing it away,” said Lindsay-Jean Hard, a writer for the Zingerman's gourmet food business group and author of the book “Cooking from waste: Turn peels, piths, rinds and stems into delicious dishes.”
“Education is a lot of work: questioning our assumptions, learning ourselves, and then sharing that knowledge with others so we can all do a little better.”» she noted.
Here are some helpful ways to stop wasting food.
Have a meal plan
Leftovers can be added to savory dishes such as Spinach Mushroom Frittata. – tvirbickis/iStockphoto/Getty Images
Chef Michel Casadei Massari suggested implementing simple systems at home that work for you, such as an “opportunity box” in the refrigerator containing “trimmed, labeled pieces ready to become soup, salad or frittata.”
“Buy less but more often, store correctly, portion ahead and give each item a “plan for the next life” the day it arrives,” Massari, general manager and executive chef of the Italian restaurant Lucciola in Manhattan, said via email.
Hard takes these scraps and puts them into frittatas and stratas.
“Both are great budget recipes,” she said, explaining that “they're easy to throw together… and can handle all sorts of complexities and challenges.”
Her advice for diving deeper into zero-waste cooking is to choose one or two ingredients you might not be used to. stale bread or root greens and start incorporating them into your meals, then add more as needed. (Remember that bread pieces can be frozen for other recipes, and vegetables can be pickled or frozen for broth.)
“Many home cooks are already really thinking about using food, whether it's out of necessity, something they grew up around or something they learned. Others of us may not have thought about it yet,” she said. But we can get there.
Don't rinse jars
Claire Dinhout, content creator and author of “Seasoning book: Unleashing Maximum Flavor with Minimum Effort” is a big proponent of getting every last drop of flavor out of any canned or bottled product you have on hand. She demonstrates this strategy in her “never rinse the jar” videos that she posts on social media.
A nearly used up jar of Dijon mustard or mayonnaise is the perfect opportunity to make a salad dressing, as she shows in the videos, while a nearly empty jam jar can be the perfect vessel for a yogurt bowl, chia seed pudding and more.
“My favorite thing to do this summer is, you know, I’ve always loved matcha, but I didn’t realize that I like different flavors of matcha,” Dienhout said. “So now, whenever I finish using a jar of jam or jelly, I always pour milk into it the night before and the next morning I have nice, flavored milk.”
Don't peel those carrots
It's important to question any recipe and our ideas about the healthy parts of each ingredient. Who said you need to peel potatoes or carrots?
“Feeling curious and questioning your habits – do you really need to peel carrots? is a helpful mindset to go into this with,” Hard said.
The waste can even act as a flavor enhancer on its own, as is the case with this banana bread recipe from Zingerman's Bakehouse, an artisanal bakery in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that uses the entire banana, including the peel, Hard said.
“Not only does this reduce food waste (including the peel giving the bread a stronger banana flavour), but it is also a great example of what actually tastes better when made from ‘waste’,” she added.
You can find Oh So A's Banana Peel Bread recipe under “Celebrate every day“, Zingerman's cookbook, which Hard co-authored. A recipe version is also available. Here.
Francesca Giuliani Hoffman is the editorial producer of CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront.
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