Prevent Wasted Food

Wasting Less: There’s An App for That!

What’s “app,” Conscientious Food Consumers?

So here we are, Earth Month 2024: four years out (and counting) from that global viral event that brought us all to the “new normal” and the early editions of our “Kitchen Confessions” blog. Life is still busy, groceries are more expensive and too much of them are still going to waste, plus many of us are tethered more than ever to our phones! So what’s an electronically-enabled Conscientious Food Consumer to do?

Perhaps a bit of digital intervention might be “app”-ropriate! Particularly given our country’s ambitious goal of reducing food waste in half by 2030.

Many of us recall when grocery shopping was primarily in-person and involved hand-scribbled lists, consulting hard-copy cookbooks, chefs on TV, and recipe swaps with family and friends. We can still do those old-school things, of course, but nowadays, there’s an app for pretty much everything!

For this edition of our Kitchen Confessions, we took a superficial dive into the wild-wide-world of digital food tools, and came up with a brief listing of ones we’re either currently using or are willing to try out. In particular, we looked for app developers with a well-stated commitment to our shared mission — empowering folks to waste less food and save money at home, everyday!

We found the most app-ealing ones to offer: ease of use, free downloads, reasonable usefulness without purchasing an upgrade, and transparent policies regarding what happens with your user data. For the most part, the apps listed below correlate with NFLB’s Smart Strategies, and can help you take these old-school website- and paper-based tools to the next level!

As Conscientious Food Consumers know, wasting less starts with 1) Shopping your fridge, freezer and pantry first, 2) Meal Planning, followed by 3) Smart Shopping (lists). After you get home with the goods, it’s time for 4) Smart Storage (as well as Smart Prep, if possible), and finally, making sure you’re keeping track of what’s on hand, and sharing or donating your excess. There’s apps and old-school resources for all of that!

In Europe and some large U.S. cities, there’s some well-known apps like Flashfood and TooGoodToGo doing the important work of  food rescue: connecting consumers with restaurants, retailers and food-based businesses whose excess meals and products would otherwise end up in their dumpsters. These are not operating in our area, so they’re not on our list.

We’re also highlighting three apps we’ve listed here since Day One of our program, as well as a few links to websites and printable resources that we like — because not everyone loves using apps!

We hope you’ll find them both useful and fun to use! (Please see important note at the end***)

FRIDGE/FREEZER/PANTRY INVENTORY & SHOPPING LISTS

  •  OMG  Oh My Groceries! When was the last time you LOL’ed while making a grocery list? It happens every time we use this app, which does only one thing — it generates a categorized and shareable shopping list. This developer should win a prize for best sense of humor and his pay-it-forward, enlightened sense of mission. (Apple users only)
  • Cooklist This muscle-bound, very-smart app does it all: helps organize and track your kitchen inventory, monitor date labels so you know how (not-)fresh everything is, generates shopping lists with your product preferences, and can even place your shopping orders. (Apple & Android users)
  • Old School (website): NFLB’s Freezer Inventory (English and Spanish). You’ve probably already seen or picked up this downloadable pdf on yellow card stock, one of our most popular Smart Strategies!

MEAL PLANNING & RECIPES

  • Big Oven We’ve listed this one since Day One because it helps you use up what’s already on-hand! Plug up to three items into the free recipe tool, and out pops dozens of recipe suggestions. Registration is now required to integrate certain features like the shopping list and meal planning, and to save your favorite recipes. (Apple & Android users)
  • Mealime was recommended to us by a Farmers’ Market booth visitor for healthy meal planning. It incorporates your personal preferences for suggested menus, along with portion sizes, to generate shopping lists for recipes that can be whipped up into a meal in just 30 minutes! (Apple & Android users)
  • Old School (website): The Guestimator Speaking of portion sizes, here’s a great tool for prepping and cooking the perfect amount of food for all your guests, particularly during the holidays!

SMART STORAGE/FOOD SAFETY

  •  USDA’s FoodKeeper  Authoritative, searchable database for freshness and safe consumption for everything edible. (Apple & Android users)
  • Old School (website): Eat Or Toss is absolutely golden! Credible advice for those questionable food item characteristics you might find while rummaging in your fridge, freezer and pantry, plus “use it up” recipes.
  • Old School (website): Still Tasty An oldie-but-goodie, user-friendly, searchable fave of NFLB/Kitchen Confessions staff. Check out the “Shelf Life” section!

FOOD SHARING/DONATION

  •  OLIO Share extra or unwanted food with your neighbors with this trusted app, used worldwide. Welcome to the sharing economy!

TRACKING WASTE AT HOME

  •   Mitre’s new app, the Food Waste Tracker, helps you get a precise reality-check of what’s going on in your kitchen. We’ve just started using this eye-opening app, which quantifies daily consumption and waste patterns. The anonymous data generated will likely inform future progress reports on national food waste habits. (Apple & Android users)
  • Old School (downloadable): NFLB’s DIY Wasted Food Discovery Week form (English/Spanish)

Happy App-ing! We’d love to hear about your experiences in the comment section below. Which are your favorite apps for wasting less and saving more, at home, everyday?

***PLEASE NOTE: We don’t claim to be product evaluation pros! The above mobile app or company listings are provided by No Food Left Behind Corvallis for informational purposes only. They are not necessarily endorsed by the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition, its governing Board, nor its partner organizations.

 

 

 

 

 

Are you a Conscientious Carnivore?

Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers! Another Earth Day/Week is behind us — so what now?

Given the state of things on our planet, there is at least one thing we all do every day that can help… one thing that each of us has some control over: what we eat. “The way we eat has a direct impact on the climate crisis,” notes the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit advocacy organization working on human health and environmental issues since 1993.

NFLB’s Avocado Hero!

Most of us know we should eat more veggies! It also happens to be one of the most effective ways each of us can tread the Earth with a lighter carbon footprint. Now, more than ever, it’s time for those of us who choose/prefer an animal product diet to examine the impacts of our choices — and to shift toward more sustainable ones.

Fortunately, many carnivorous Americans are willing to do just that! A recent report, “Climate Change and the American Diet,” outlines both the acceptance and the challenges Americans have around eating less red meat and more plant-based foods. 

SO IT’S TIME to address this huge topic that we’ve shied away from (thus far) in Kitchen Confessions — the environmental (not to mention human health) consequences of animal-based diets. Especially when those kinds of food products get wasted! Keep scrolling that document, and you’ll see that most waste happens in the household, including 31% of seafood, 21% of meat, and 20% of dairy groceries.

To be clear: we’re not here to guilt trip anybody over their dietary choices and preferences.

Graphic: Kjerstin Hallin, NFLB’s Eco-Educator

CONFESSION: I’m an omnivore myself, consuming varying proportions of pork, chicken, turkey, cheese and other dairy products, eggs and seafood, as well as grains, veggies and fruits. Beef — not so much! (Although in the past I’ve certainly eaten my share of burgers.) NFLB’s Founder/Director, Jeanette Hardison, CONFESSES that her family is of the same dietary persuasion. “We also try to swap in non-GMO tofu and other meat alternatives on a regular basis,” she says.

SO WHAT’S A “CONSCIENTIOUS CARNIVORE?” It’s a non-vegan, non-vegetarian Conscientious Food Consumer who:

  1. Recognizes the impacts of dietary choices.
  2. Buys/consumes fewer animal products.
  3. Wastes less of what they do buy.

It starts with a concept the Earth Day Network calls a “Foodprint” — the quantification of environmental impacts of what we eat. Beef is the most resource-intensive form of animal protein, requiring 20 times more land and producing 20 times more GHG emissions per gram of edible protein than protein from plants (such as beans).

OSU Professor Bill Ripple has determined the “farm to fork” environmental cost of beef and dairy consumption to be up to 48 times that of high-protein plant sources. For chicken, pork and seafood, he found, it’s 3-10 times more.

Animal agriculture accounts for more than 14% of greenhouse gas emissions (earthday.org)

From cultivated feed crops to every step in the supply chain and up to the animal processing stage, the industrial model of meat production requires enormous amounts of land, water, fossil fuels/energy, and labor, as well as presenting issues around animal welfare.

Curious about your own/your family’s ‘foodprint’? Take this quiz, check out the “Meat Calculator”, resources for kids and other Foodprints for the Future references. Whether your efforts toward a carbon-minimizing diet are modest or ambitious, we hope the suggestions below will be helpful!

8 Ways To Be A Conscientious Carnivore:

  • Step it up — big time! — to not waste animal food products and the $$ investment they represent. * Start with Smart Storage, right after you get the groceries home. (Just don’t freeze and forget it!)  * Refer to this freezer storage and food safety guide (you can even freeze eggs!) * Keep track of/use up random leftovers in an “Eat First!” area of your fridge or freezer — especially things like last weekend’s BBQ chicken, opened packages of lunch meat, half-cartons of milk or yogurt. * Use USDA’s FoodKeeper app!
  • Be okay with eating less -but higher-quality- meat/poultry, seafood and dairy, like pasture-raised beef or eggs from free-range chickens. Yes, they do cost more — but if you’re buying fewer animal products, it could balance out. It’s also extra motivation for avoiding waste! Mix in a good proportion of mushrooms, vegetables or grains with your meat of choice, and you’ll stretch your budget, too.
  • Plan and prepare one or more meat-free meals each week, like “Meatless Mondays” or whichever day(s). This works great for one of my faves — chili! Swap out the meat-based elements in a few of your favorite dishes with plant-based oils and alternative proteins from grains, beans, nuts, tofu, seitan, or maybe even a cultivated “meat substitute.” (We’re not talking about crickets –yet.)
  • Downsize dairy consumption, and experiment with dairy alternatives. You don’t have to give up your favorite old-fashioned ice cream or half-n-half in your coffee! Just think smaller and less-frequent servings. For me, it’s pints instead of quarts of ice cream, vegan caramelized onion “cheese” spread, and using plant-based coffee creamers more often.
  • Search out cookbooks and websites not centered around animal proteins or ingredients — like these simple recipes. There’s endless inspiration for tasty adventures with plant-based menus from around the world that will get you using your spice rack more often!
  • Occasionally go vegan for dessert! Baked goods and treats made without eggs or dairy are popping up on frozen dessert/bakery shelves and coffee shops all over now, so it’s easy to give it a try. Vegan substitutions in recipes are also now more common, so you can experiment at home with plant-based milks and butters. Sweet!
  • Involve kiddos in the planning and preparation of some meat-free/plant-based dishes and menus. There’s a wonderful variety of kid-tested vegetarian (and special-diet) recipes here and at OSU’s Food Hero.
  • Be sure to use your Yard Debris/Mixed Organics cart from Republic Services to compost spoiled meat and dairy items, when all else fails! Their industrial processes convert food waste — even bones — into high-quality compost instead of landfill greenhouse gas emissions.

In the months and years to come, we’re all going to be hearing a lot more about the necessities and how-to’s of “plant-rich,” “plant-based,” and “climate-friendly” diets.

Congratulations! Whether you are a practicing Conscientious Carnivore, aspiring to become one — or not a carnivore at all — you’re making a difference. Please help by liking and sharing our blog on Facebook!

Keeping spices spicy with Smart Storage

Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers!

After an unsettling start to this New Year, I’m finding a lot of comfort in the kitchen these days. (Not just while snacking!) And it’s in my spice cupboard.

When was the last time you savored the simple delight of homemade spiced apple cider (also known as wassail)? Ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove, simmering in a pan of apple juice with citrus and sweetener… The mixture diffuses a lovely aroma in the home, and a fragrant, soothing mug of the stuff will fix you up right on a winter’s day.

Oh, and I used up a half-bottle of apple juice from my fridge’s “Eat First!” shelf making it!

That’s how I recently developed a fresh interest in herbs and spices: those magical bits of berry, bark, leaf, flower and root — many from exotic, faraway places — that we humans have used since ancient times for food preparation and enjoyment, healing, cosmetics, trade and ceremony. The history of spice is epic!

Spices, Mapusa Market (Goa, India) https://www.flickr.com/photos/judepics/409841087/ (Creative Commons 2.0.)

The aromatics, colors and variety of herbs and spices are intrinsically comforting, don’t you think? Here’s a searchable, comprehensive list of herbs, spices and seasonings, along with their culinary properties and countries of origin.

Properly employed, the magic of spice and herbs — particularly when they’re fresh or well-preserved and stored — can help you waste less food and save $$$ every day, every meal! Spice magic can inspire you to raid your own pantry and use up everyday staples like rice, beans, pasta and canned goods, and whatever’s in your Eat First areas.

With inspiration from spice allies like cumin, ginger, garlic, curry, red chili oil and paprika, I’ve explored some delightful variations on fried rice.

One of Yeung Man Cooking’s Cantonese-inspired fried rice dishes  (YouTube)

Of course, this blog is not really about “the joy of cooking with spices”… it’s about not wasting what went into each one of those little bottles of flavor: all that agricultural water, energy and human labor; industrial packaging and transportation (fuel) in supply chains across multiple countries. Not to mention all the $$$ you spent stocking your herb and spice cabinet!

Depending on your tastes, using spice can be EXPENSIVE! So here’s a few tips for keeping those spices spicy and ready for use in your 2021 meal plans:

  1. HOW LONG DO SPICES LAST? It’s true spices don’t spoil like other types of food, but over time they will lose their fresh “flavor profile” (as I have discovered, see below!), and have less of an effect in a dish. So pay attention to those “Use By/Best By” dates on the containers. A variety of factors influence a seasoning’s potency, so check the details at StillTasty.com.
  2. BUY JUST WHAT YOU NEED for special dishes (or strictly-occasional use) by shopping the bulk spice and herb bins at the Co-op, Winco, or other stores in our area. You’ll find a great selection and save $$$ too!
  3. For the best flavor retention, BUY WHOLE SPICE/HERB products (for example, nutmeg), then grind or grate them just before usage.
  4. Follow the lead of most herb/spice manufacturers: store bulk-purchased or homegrown seasonings IN GLASS CONTAINERS to preserve the freshness, properly labeled, away from heat and light sources.
  5. DON’T FREEZE spices, but some herbs can be frozen in ice cube trays in water or oil.

Also keep in mind the global carbon footprint of spice. Many of our favorites come to our kitchens from far away, like India (a principal export country), the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean. The nutmeg and cinnamon I used in my spiced cider probably came from Indonesia, Vietnam or Sri Lanka! So there’s a huge supply chain and expenditure of energy involved to get those flavors into our kitchens.

While many of our favorite herbs also originated on other continents, they’ve adapted to cultivation in North America. So your favorite packaged or fresh herbs are easily sourced locally and thus have a smaller carbon footprint: garlic, mint, basil, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, to name just a few. Or you can grow your own!

*****

Now here’s our first Kitchen Confessions for 2021:

the joy of a well organized spice cabinet!

KAREN CONFESSES:

Now that I’m cooking more regularly, I’m noticing when my use of spice doesn’t have the intended effect (not as tasty, perhaps not spicy enough)!  Although I’m sometimes over-cautious with my use of seasoning, it’s more likely due to the condition of those spices.

Recently I discovered a few three year-old spice bottles whose powdered contents had turned to hard-cake or failed the smell test. Worse yet, I also had a jar of non-expired Japanese gomasio seasoning with what looked like cobwebs inside — eeeeww! 

I also found two near-full bottles of vanilla extract (oops!) that are still fine.

$$ WASTED: Around $10 (guessestimate based on current prices) for the wasted portions in three bottles.

LESSONS LEARNED:

  • Take my own advice above and buy bulk spices, storing them in glass containers.
  • No “clearance” spice purchases, unless I plan on cooking regularly with them!
  • Shop my pantry first! Use up the older bottle of vanilla asap by moving it to the front of the spice cabinet, or give it away to a friend, neighbor or family member who can make use of it.

JEANETTE CONFESSES:

Many times we have bought bulk spices like turmeric or nutmeg, only to come home and realize we already had some in the pantry. That bowl o’bagged spice magic makes it hard to “shop the pantry first” because it’s hard to identify what’s there.

LESSONS LEARNED: Start transferring these beautiful flavors into the glass jars pictured after shopping. Many of those jars need to be emptied into compost and started over because their contents are older and flavorless.

Come up with better labeling for the jars, too — clear tape with sharpie is barely noticeable and faded over time.

$$ WASTED: Probably around $10, once I sort and dump ye olde spices.

Here’s to all that good spicy-ness in 2021!