5 Changes to Help Reduce Your Waste

By: Skyler T. Johnston

Oregon PhD's have done extensive research into the issue of food waste and causes food to be wasted within our state. One particular paper reported:

"71% of food waste thrown away by households to all destinations (including trash, organic waste collection, home composting, down the drain, and fed to pets) could have been eaten by humans (at one point). That is, 71% of food waste is in fact 'wasted food' and is candidate for prevention."

To help reduce this statistic here are five very simple things you can do to use more and waste less.

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1} Lower Your Standards

One of the key contributors to food waste right now is the standard of beauty in our food. A lot of things often get composted, fed to pets, or just thrown away because it doesn't look appetizing enough to some. In most cases though, the "ugly" part not only tastes the best but has the best flavor like the peel from a potato. A potato peel has infinitely more uses then even the rest of the "white meat": add them to the potato mash for texture, leave them on a fry for added robustness, or simply season and fry crisp into a nice chip.

Simple things like that aren't often thought about but if changed could be in immense help in reducing the overall food waste the Oregon puts out. Just because it may be ugly or just not look usable does not mean it isn't edible. Take your time and research the food you use and how much more of it you could be using, and even improving your meals with.

2} Find a Use

Everything within the kitchen has a use, from the large cuts of fat of the meat to the little peel of a lime. All you need to do is a little research, or even experiment yourself, and you'll find that not only are you better for not wasting but your food will also be better for you AND taste better. For example, if you can manage to keep a sterile enough environment you can keep the same pickling brine indefinitely. As it goes on too it will pick up all these complex flavors, scents, and more that'll just deepen the intensity and richness of whatever you're pickling.

even if you don't end up cooking with the extra parts you can always find a different use such as planting the seeds of your produce to grow your own fresh and beautiful version of that plant. You could even (after doing the proper research to find what foods are toxic to your animal) you can make it into your own animal food for your pet which will also be better than any food you could buy if you do it right.

3} Control Your Portions

When you prepare food, you want to make sure that you make only as much as is going to be used or eaten and, eventually, using everything in some way. Another one of the greatest causes of food being wasted is the simple forgetfulness of man. Multiple surveys and research papers suggest that the top cause of food waste in residential areas is people having prepared or buying too much food and forgetting that it is there and needing to throw it away after it's gotten rotten.

There are a couple things in particular you can do to help keep better control of your portion sizes. Firstly, you should really pay attention to what you eat and how much. Different foods react differently in the stomach and not all portions are the same because of this. You can manage to eat more meat than carbs, for example, because carb rich items like noodles or bread will expand in the stomach making you feel fuller, quicker. Second, don't be afraid to ask others about their eating habits beforehand. Not only will this ensure you're making proper portions for everyone, but they will feel more of a sense of togetherness with you and feel included since you're actually taking their dietary needs into consideration. This could also be extended into allergies making sure that what you make wont poison them either.

4} Don't Delay the Inevitable

Continuing with the previous thought, if you do end up preparing too much food then make sure you do eat it. Too often food gets left in the fridge with the empty promise of being eaten right until it's thrown out. Typically, after about a week is when leftover fridge food will be considered "bad" and thrown away. Most often, during that whole week the food item will never be touched once. When you look in your fridge instead of making something new focus on the already made food and really as yourself not just "do I really want this right now?" but "do I really want this at all?".

Understandably though, you just can't manage to eat the same thing again until it's gone. Now you should only make such a choice in rare situations but if you do, make sure you can put it to a new use before it can't be used for anything anymore.

5} Waste Smarter

Both Oregon Metro and The Steve Woods Food Waste Foundation are creating new systems to be put in place to ensure that what waste does get generated gets handled properly. The reason food waste is, in all actuality, such a big pollutant is not because it takes up space and never goes away like plastic since it is biodegradable, and it's not because it is being eaten by local wildlife killing it slowly since it is food after all, the reason this is such a huge problem is what happens when these items begin to break down. The human body is a large processing plant for these things, it takes all the nutrients, minerals, and other molecules out that the body needs and leaves everything else to be used by the surrounding environment to continue the circle of life.

If this processing facility is bypassed, then nothing is taken out of the food and instead when it breaks down those things are released into the environment causing an offset. Now most of the regular things like the nutrients and minerals aren't so much of a problem since they are in such small amounts and are actually being absorbed by the environment but what doesn't get in is the gasses produced. Food waste that breaks down pushes an astronomical amount of greenhouse gasses into the air further thickening the protective layer around our earth trapping in more and more of the sun's rays further progressing global warming.

We need everyone to think twice about their food waste and really change their ways to help cut down. Really reduce the amount of waste there is but if there just has to be waste then make sure you are still finding a use for it instead of just throwing it away. Start a compost pile of your own, maybe even create a way to harness the gas produced by the compost to power some machinery. The world is your oyster, and if you really work hard and put yourself out there to help things will change and we will be able to have this earth for generations long after us.