Food Waste

Here is something else to think about: are we wasting too much food? I wonder this myself and have been thinking a lot more about this the past few weeks. This morning I read this article that talked about how the average American throws away 253 pounds of food each year. Each year! Think about it - that is a lot of food. Nearly one third of food produced for human consumption globally is lost or wasted every year. That translates to 1.3 billion tons of food – the weight of 3,400 Golden Gate Bridges – going to waste each year! And with that comes all the wasted energy, water, chemicals, and labor that go into producing, transporting, and storing that food. In developing countries, only ("only") 13-24 pounds are wasted each year - quite a difference... If you want to follow up some more, here is an interesting blog by Jonathan Bloom about wasted food. Consider reading more to figure out how you can stop wasting food.

When I recently cleaned out my fridge in the big spring fridge cleaning of 2011, there was a lot of food in there that just wasn't edible anymore. I composted almost everything that was bad and cleaned the heck out of that fridge, but it still bummed me out. That bad food was all wasted and there was nothing that I could do about it at that point. It could have fed us and saved us money if we had just not bought more food to fill the space in front of it in the fridge, blocking it from our view and forcing it to be less appealing than the newer, fresher stuff.

So moving forward, I will make sure this happens no more. Worse case scenario, we will feed the food that is almost bad or destined to be ignored to our very lucky (and healthy) dog, Rocco.

Here is a picture of our fridge today:

The idea is that everything in the fridge is edible and appealing... with the semi-exception of condiments, which are only really appealing when you need them. (If you want to know about anything in my fridge, just ask because I have recipes! However, I'm not sure that this photo gives justice to some of the delicious zero waste treats in my fridge...)

So let me ask you this: are you conscious and comfortable with the amount of food that you and your family waste? I certainly am not happy with some of the food waste that happens in my house, but I like to think that my growing consciousness of it will eventually help to seriously eliminate the majority of it. 

If you have any good ideas or suggestions about how to help eliminate food waste, please share!