Prevent Wasted Food

Not just another Earth Day

Happy Quarantine Earth Day, Conscientious Food Consumers!

It's the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, and the theme is Climate Action, as it should be! We applaud the roll out this Earth Day of a campaign called "FoodPrints for the Future," challenging us to accept responsibility for the impacts of our food choices and habits on our planet's livability.

As it so happens, that's a huge part of our objective with the No Food Left Behind project as well! Prevention of wasted food is also a key component of the Corvallis Climate Action Plan.

In our first installment of our new Kitchen Confessions blog, we pointed out how the impacts of wasted food deplete the Earth's resources along every step of the food chain - from the production and distribution process to right here in our own kitchens and on our plates.  With nearly 8 billion mouths to feed, we can see how food waste quickly becomes the third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet! We can all DO something about that.

But as we all know, this Earth Day is different: How can we exercise greater environmental awareness in the midst of a worldwide pandemic? There are plenty of ideas at Earthday.org, and countless other websites. NFLB's parent organization, the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition, has launched a new page called "Building Resilience," with local resources for helping us stay connected to community and to support more Earth-friendly lifestyles in the midst of this crisis.

So now that most of us are sheltering at home, we have to put A LOT more time and energy into planning, shopping, storing, preparing, cooking and re-storing meals for ourselves and our loved ones. In the US, most are no longer shopping as often, we're 'stocking up' each time we do go, and we're much more inclined to think ahead about our how to feed ourselves and our families. And of course, we're being more careful with our food budgets.

This makes it all the more important to get the most out of your groceries and those food dollars! NFLB's "Smart Strategies" are designed to help you, as conscientious food consumers, do just that.

  • Take stock of what you have on hand as you stock up.  Download and fill out your "Smart Shopping" and Meal Planner lists BEFORE heading out on your grocery expedition.
  • Guidelines for proper storage of groceries (after appropriate disinfection!).  We have reference guides for freezing some of the beautiful fresh fruits and other produce you may have gotten at the Farmers' Market or store, and a handy Freezer Inventory Sheet for keeping track of what's in there. Don't freeze it and forget it!
  • Eat First! fridge/pantry shelf reminders for all those partial food portions and leftover ingredients that can easily get "left behind." As you can see from our own "Kitchen Confessions" below, it's something we can all use -- Every Day, Every Meal!
  • If you are sheltering with kids, now's the perfect time to help them learn about all of this too!

Now, normally you could see these materials in person and have a chance to talk about food issues with me, your friendly Outreach Specialist, at our booth at the Corvallis Saturday Farmers' Markets. Our program isn't tabling right now, but we hope you'll be able to shop the downtown Farmers' Market, which opened last weekend for the season with plenty of appropriate safeguards for Covid-careful patrons and vendors. We look forward to returning to the Market's "free speech zone" as soon as it's prudent!

KAREN CONFESSES:

While sheltering at home, I've had time to dig into my own fridge and freezer and "take stock" of what's on hand. I discovered these items at the back of the fridge... what a waste of wonderful preservative-free sliced turkey and 2-3 servings of jack cheese! These had once occupied a prominent spot on my "Eat First!" shelf, but got pushed back when I added new items.

$$$ WASTED: About $8

LESSON LEARNED: Use a Meal Planner to guide daily decisions; use up or rotate items on my "Eat First" shelf frequently!

JEANETTE CONFESSES:

Bought freezer waffles for my teen, but she didn't like the flavor so we should have eaten them instead - they lingered in the freezer well past their "best by" date and got freezer burned!

Organic grapes were stored correctly in their bag in the crisper drawer, but some were forgotten! Many still tasted fine even though they were ugly, but the ones with cracks became moldy and inedible.

$$$ WASTED: About $4

LESSONS LEARNED: Next time eat them sooner! Repackage waffles into resealable freezer bag and remove air. Eat grapes sooner by placing in fridge "Eat First!" section, or attaching "Eat First!" sign.

We hope these resources support you and your loved ones as we all do our best in addressing the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis.

Be well, and Happy 50th Earth Day!

Welcome to Kitchen Confessions!

Hello, Conscientious Food Consumers!

No Food Left Behind, a project of the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition, welcomes you to our new "Kitchen Confessions" blog for sharing fresh facts, resources, tips, lessons learned and anecdotes around issues of wasted food in the home.

This blog was already in the works before COVID-19, but now since most of us are primarily cooking and eating at home, it’s the perfect way to reach you all, and a great opportunity to become more aware of our own individual and family habits around food.

Making better choices to reduce the amount of edible food going into landfill or compost bins will save your family money and time, and prevent extra trips to stores. Wasted food prevention really does start at home... Every Day, Every Meal!

I'm your friendly Farmers' Market outreach specialist, Karen. For the past two years, I’ve represented the Coalition and the NFLB project at the Corvallis Saturday Farmers’ Markets, and guess what? Food gets wasted sometimes in my home too!

Of course, I feel bad about this because I know it's not just the food item itself that was wasted... I wasted all the resources that went into producing and bringing it to my grocery bag: the soil amendments, the animal feed, the energy (mostly fossil fuels), and so much water! Then there's the labor of all those people at every stage of the food production and delivery process, and even more energy needed to harvest, package and deliver my food to the market or grocery store.

If that's not motivating enough, here's the bottom line: the shocking amount of $$ I wasted! For myself, sometimes it's around $40/month, or almost $500 a year!  (Some of that would sure come in handy later this year when they reopen the restaurants.)

For the average family of four in this country, wasted food adds up to $1600 a year!

Download even more numbers about the "Facts and Impacts" of wasted food here.

With "Kitchen Confessions" we're going to get real about shriveled, moldy and slimy produce, leftovers that turned into science experiments, freezer-burned berries, and many other tragedies involving formerly-edible food. We'll share "lessons learned" and look at ways to prevent future wasting.

NFLB Project Manager, Jeanette Hardison, confesses:
“I bought these lovely cheddar biscuits from the bakery section because they were freshly-baked locally without preservatives. We should have had a meal planned for them right away. They went moldy on me first, because I stored them on the counter!"

$$ Wasted: $4 or $5

Lesson Learned: Refrigerate bakery items that don’t have preservatives.

NFLB Outreach Specialist, Karen Kos confesses: “I bought a butternut squash over the holidays, intending to stuff it or make soup, but I didn’t follow through with my meal plan! It became an “ornament” on my counter and ended up spoiled on the inside without showing it on the outside.”

$$$ Wasted: About $2

Lesson Learned: Prep squash right away by cutting in half, and store in a clear container, placed in “Eat First!” area in fridge.

Farmers’ Market visitors may have heard me joke about how “guilt can be very motivational.” Heck, yeah! But don’t stay in the guilt. Let’s feel good that we can learn from it and just do better with the next batch of bread rolls and squash!

It feels amazing when we feed ourselves and our loved ones better and put grocery money back in our wallets! It also decreases our carbon footprint – always a plus.

Please follow us on this journey of discovery and reform of our daily food habits. It’ll be enlightening, and we’ll try to make it fun!

 

Author: Karen Kos of No Food Left Behind- Corvallis, in Corvallis, Oregon