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.

 

 

 

 

 

Preventing Wasted Food is a National Thing!

Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers!

Since 2018, we here at No Food Left Behind-Corvallis have been bringing you information and resources, which we hope have been enlightening & motivational, about the systemic, global problem of wasted food. Five years later, we’re happy to be a partner — for the second consecutive year — of National Food Waste Prevention Week, April 10th-16th, 2023.

(Temps don’t stay constant!)

There’ll be loads of resources and connections from all over the country, social media engagement on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, tips for wasting less at home, events, an art contest for K-12 students, webinars, and fun game show-style quizzes. There will also be more Spanish-language resources and materials! Keep checking back at their website for updates and happenings.

The goal of National Food Waste Prevention Week is “to educate and inspire real cultural change around food waste… to help families save money, reduce the negative impact of food waste on the environment, and address hunger in our communities.” Pretty ambitious — but the good news is there are hundreds of partners from every part of the country, representing every sector of the food system, signing on. Hooray! Preventing Wasted Food is a National Thing!

Oregon is one of the top three states with 38 participating agencies and organizations so far, thanks to our colleagues at the state’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) Materials Management division, which is a principal organizing partner for this national event. DEQ also lends its unique “Bad Apple” campaign characters (like the broccoli figure) to the national effort. Maybe you’ve picked up one of these stickers at our Farmers’ Market table!

We would be remiss if we neglected to mention the fact that DEQ grant funding jump-started NFLB five years ago. We are proud to be one of DEQ’s partners in its statewide campaign to reduce wasted food.

How You Can Participate in National Food Waste Prevention Week:

  • TAKE THE PLEDGE to use good habits to reduce food waste at home and work, be accountable, and share your knowledge with others! Then post your commitment on social media (if you so choose).
  • TAKE A QUIZ: Are you as savvy as a 5th Grader? Daily fun facts and tips. (Maybe you ARE a fifth grader!)
  • Encourage your child to enter the STUDENT ART CONTEST. This year’s theme: “How Does Reducing Our Food Waste Protect Our Planet?” Check out last year’s winners!
  • Learn something or make a new connection in a WEBINAR. The offerings range from general interest to geeky. Many will be state- or regionally-specific.
  • FOLLOW National Food Waste Prevention Week on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for fun facts and tips before, during and after the week!
  • TRACK YOUR FOOD HABITS FOR A WEEK using NFLB’s “Wasted Food Discovery Week” form (also available in Spanish). Browse our Recipes for Leftovers, or download one or more of our other Smart Strategies to help you change those behaviors and save money!
  • SEE FUN EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS in English and Spanish from NFLB’s own “Magic Mama” Kjersten Hallin. This spring, Kjersten will once again be presenting these, along with movement, music and curriculum-enhancing activities in Corvallis schools. Contact us to request a visit to your child’s classroom!

EVERY WEEK CAN BE WASTED FOOD PREVENTION WEEK!

Many of you, during our regular encounters at the Corvallis Farmers’ Markets, have mentioned your concerns about the entire spectrum of food waste, from unharvested produce at field and farm, to the full dumpsters behind a big box grocer or retailer, to the garbage receptacles at restaurants, in school lunchrooms, at sporting events and festivals.

We’re happy to report that the problem is now being addressed in nearly every state and in many municipalities, through governmental programs and public-private partnerships across all sectors of our food systems. Sophisticated, data-driven initiatives from non-profit and non-governmental research organizations like ReFED, Project Drawdown, and the NRDC have created resources and conceptual groundwork for systemic change by 2030.

But it still comes down to each one of us, in our own households, to make the biggest difference. It’s now well established that most food waste happens IN THE HOME, and that reducing food waste is the #1 personal action we can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions driving the global climate crisis.

National Food Waste Prevention Week happens each April, just like Earth Day. Shouldn’t EVERY DAY be Earth Day? Let’s make EVERY WEEK Food Waste Prevention Week!

Congratulations, Conscientious Food Consumers (and everyone who’s working on it). You are part of a nationwide, even international, movement!

Discover how much you can $ave in 2022 with our DIY challenge!

Greetings for 2022, Conscientious Food Consumers!

Kitchen Confessions is back and we’re ramping up our efforts to help you waste less food and save more $$ in your household food budget in this new year. You can look forward to even more useful tips, anecdotes, resources and friendly nudges for making the most of your groceries — every day, every meal!

Now that we’ve all had awhile to settle into 2022, it’s a great time to challenge ourselves to a Do-It-Yourself Wasted Food Discovery Week . It’s a simple, three-step self audit to help you determine:

  • How much and which kinds of food got tossed;
  • Why they got wasted;
  • Optional: weight or volume of wasted food items; and
  • How much did you spend for those items or portions?
    Wasted Food = Wasted $$!

If you live in Corvallis, Albany, or Philomath, please utilize your Yard Debris cart from Republic Services for compost waste.  When you keep food out of the landfill, you’re also doing your part to reduce those powerful methane greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate havoc!

Once you multiply one week’s totals by the number of remaining weeks this year, you’ll probably get a valuable reality check on how much $$ you can save with simple actions and tools like the ones in our Smart Strategies tool box (available in both Spanish and English).

Karen’s Confession: My Wasted Food Discovery Week “reality check” last year yielded a bottom line of more than $1,000 in potential savings! So I am certainly extra-motivated in this new year to prevent hundreds of my hard-earned dollars from going into the compost bin. You can read about what I learned and shared in KC blog #24, “Waste Happens. Own it-Track it-Save!”

Karen’s Wasted Food Discoveries (omg!)

GREAT TOOLS CREATE GREAT HABITS!
Jeanette’s 2021 success story

NFLB Program Director Jeanette Hardison

In the past year, the NFLB staff has worked extra hard to walk our talk and make changes in our own homes.

We know how challenging it can be at times in family situations and multi-member households, so wasted food/money still happens! This past week, I had to compost some moldy bread ends and some stale cheddar puffs, and Karen shared with me her chagrin about wasting a whole package of Bob’s Red Mill organic oats.

However, in 2021 my family and I realized some notable changes around leftovers and withering produce in the fridge. I have been surprised and delighted to find that, after more than a year taping Eat First! signs to a leftovers section in our fridge, it has become automatic to start our meal prep there!

Whether it was cooked rice, some extra tossed salad, or items closest to their “Best By” dates, it has became so automatic we no longer seem to need the signage!

This part is pretty important: Hubby and I found that if items remained clearly visible, identified AND date-labeled (tape on front is most helpful), it was super easy to eat everything up!

So in using NFLB’s Smart Strategy tools, my fridge clean-outs have mostly become a thing of the past. It’s good to know how to build muscle-memory for this money-saving habit! YOU CAN TOO!

*****

How much will you save in 2022, Conscientious Food Consumers? Join the Kitchen Confessions staff and everyday folks like these in everyday actions that can make a HUGE difference! Here’s some other resources you may find useful:

Smart Strategy: Prep Now, Eat Later
ACTION: How to use your Yard Debris/Mixed Organics recycling cart from Republic Services
Smart Strategy: Fruit & Vegetable Storage Guide

Here’s to a healthy and waste-less 2022! If you’re shopping the Winter Farmers’ Market at the Benton County Fairgrounds (we’re there every other week near the main entrance, across from Riverland Farms), be sure to drop by our booth and say hello!