One of the easiest ways to save money is to stop buying food to throw away.
Food wastage is a huge issue in the US and the UK. Every year shocking statistics are reported which cause a small buzz and are reported online and in print. Mountains of perfectly edible food, a lot of it still unopened and within its use-by date, choke landfill sites. Rivers and lakes of nourishing liquids flow down the drains where they may serve as a nutrient supply to the bacteria and fungii that must thrive down there.
Meanwhile even in these relatively rich and ‘civilised’ countries, thousands of children go to bed with empty bellies night after night.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans throw away almost 96 billion pounds of food every year – that is almost a quarter of all the food prepared! It costs the nation $1 billion annually just to dispose of it.
In the UK, the statistics look even worse. Although the mountain of food wasted may be smaller – 6.7 million tonnes – this represents a third of food bought in the UK and costs each family an average of GBP420 per year.
However, there is more than the family bank balance at stake.
- Wasted food equals wasted water
Massive amounts of water are needed to produce the food we eat – or throw away. According to the US Geological Survey Science for Schools project it takes 120 gallons of water to produce one egg and 150 gallons of water to produce one loaf of bread.
- Wasted food equals wasted energy
By the same token, consider the energy required to produce any standard food item; milk, for example. Cows need fed, watered and looked after. They have to be milked and the milk has to be cooled and processed, packed and transported to the supermarket. There it has to be unpacked and stored in the chilled section. The food the cows ate, the water that was given to them to drink, the electricity required to run the milking machines and the pasteurization process, the petrol required to run the truck and the energy required to light the supermarket and run the chilled section – all of these resources are wasted when that litre of milk is left to turn sour and is thrown away.
- Wasted food equals wasted environment
The vast majority of the food that is thrown away ends up landfill. While the popular opinion may be that as it is biodegradable, food that is disposed of in landfill is not harmful in fact the opposite is true. While it is biodegrading, food wastage is emitting methane – a major source of greenhouse gas. In the US, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, less than 2% of food wastage does not end up in landfill while in the UK, the pressure group, Love Food Hate Waste, advise that if we stopped wasting the food we buy, it would have the same impact on the environment as taking 20% of cars of the road.
Main Cause of Food Waste
Peelings, bones and other inedibles make up a very small percentage of the weight of thrown away food. The majority of it is meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, bread, baked goods, rice and pasta that has either gone past its use-by date or has been cooked and not eaten.
Stop Wasting Food
Here are some things you can do to cut down on the amount of wasted food in your household :
• Plan meals weekly
Make a meal plan that takes into account possible leftovers from the day before. For example peelings and leftover meat and vegetables from Sunday’s roast chicken and vegetables can all be used to make a hearty stock on Monday
• Love your leftovers
Before you scrape leftovers into the bin, take a second look at the serving bowls. Leftover pasta is great for adding substance to soups and many vegetables are delicious mashed with a dab of butter.
• Reduce portions
As good for your wallet as it is for your waistline, if your family are consistently leaving a lot on their plates, then cut down on the amount you are serving them.
• Don’t buy into bulk buy
Two-for-one deals at the supermarket are only a good deal, if there is enough time left before the use-by date expires for you to reasonably be expected to use the food. Otherwise by all means buy in bulk, but split the food and the costs with a neighbour.
• Use it or lose it
Supermarkets have that crafty way of putting all the items that are approaching the use-by date right out in front. Unless you know you are using something within a day or so, dig around at the back of the chill cabinet for those packets with the most distant use-by dates.
• Cupboard control
Unless you frequently check what you have in store, it is possible that by the time you get round to opening that package of pasta on the top shelf it is out of date by a couple of months. Know what you have on hand and plan your meals accordingly.
By focusing on the problem and involving your children in the process, it is not difficult to reduce your food wastage as a family. It requires a bit of an attitude adjustment to no longer see leftovers as scraps perhaps, but it is only in recent years that we have had the luxury of doing so. In past generations, it would have been unthinkable to dispose of any edible food as readily as we do now.
