This month it emerged that in the UK, a staggering eight billion pounds worth of food goes to waste, which equates to 6.7 million tonnes or a third of our total purchases. Those are scary stats that are echoed in many other countries around the world. This effects us two ways. Firstly, with food prices rising dramatically at the moment, it’s a very good idea to start looking at whether we can be more efficient with what we eat, thus wasting less and saving money. Secondly, all that wasted food typically ends up on landfills thus producing the greenhouse gas methane, on top of all the damage the excess packaging and transporting causes. It’s with all this in mind that I’ve compiled an introductory list of habits you can develop in your life that will help you to stop wasting food so as to save money and be environmentally friendly.
- Eat out less
Eating out can be great but there are so many issues. Firstly, there is the quality. If you want good, healthy food it will cost you more but if you want cheap and cheerful then you are sacrificing your health. Also you rarely have any real choice on portion sizes so you tend to come away from a meal having wasted a lot. If you eat at home you have control over what exactly you get and how much of it you eat. Just because wasted food isn’t going in your bin doesn’t mean you’re not responsible for it. - Don’t go shopping on an empty stomach
Imagine going into a shop full of food when you haven’t eaten. Not a good combination. All those temptations, all that tasty food. You may find yourself buying loads only to get home, fill yourself up and have lots left over. Make it easier on yourself by eating beforehand. - Write a shopping list
If you go into a supermarket without a clear plan of what you want to buy then you often end up randomly browsing around picking up food you wouldn’t necessarily want/need. Do your research beforehand so you know what’s missing from your fridge, how much bread and milk you really have, what supplies you need for your lunch, etc. - Shop more often and buy less
Due to time constraints and the chore of going to the market, most of us do our shopping once or twice a week and buy as much food as we think we will need. The problem is you don’t really know what you are going to be doing or how you are going to be feeling in several days time. Often I will buy something with the intention of eating it later on in the week and then my schedule changes and it gets wasted. Ideally, you want to go daily and buy just the food you need for your meals that day. - Buy only what you will definitely eat
This might seem obvious but you’d be surprised how often people buy food and then never bother to eat it despite it being right in front of them in the fridge. You know what your eating habits are, you know what you really like and don’t like. As part of my health drive I used to buy salad like lettuce and cucumber but when it mattered I simply did not bother preparing it so it inevitably went to waste. It did not fit my eating habits. - Use your freezer
Almost any food can be frozen so take advantage of that fact. Food can arguably be stored in a freezer indefinitely with negligible loss in taste or quality, so If you think you not going to eat something before it runs out of date freeze it! Just be sure to regularly review what you have in there because it’s very easy to forget what is stored in it. - Set a budget
If you set out how much money you are going to spend per week you are more likely to buy stuff you need and will definitely eat. You don’t want to buy any food without a plan or a budget and find that by Friday you’ve no money left to buy your dinner. The best approach is to take out some money beforehand and then leave your card at home. This forces you to carefully weigh up the price of everything you buy.
April 29, 2008 at 04:52AM
Some waste is unavoidable and if you use a composter you can help reuse it and save the excess landfill garbage. That definitely helps out the Earth also! I put everything possible through our composter and it saves at least a bag or two of garbage each week!
April 29, 2008 at 04:04PM
Good point Mike. If you do have wasted food you can at least put it to some use. Pity I don’t have a garden!
April 29, 2008 at 04:13PM
Great list! I use most of these methods except for the fourth one. It works better for me to plan our meals for the week and go shopping for everything at once. I take into account what’s going on each day when I plan what we’ll be having for dinner, and if a schedule change comes up, I can shuffle things to fit.
I will also make sure we always use any leftovers as well, either for lunches or as part of another meal that week.
April 29, 2008 at 07:47PM
Yeah, Johannah, I agree about using leftovers. Stuff like pizza is great for that. If I have any wasted food from dinner I will always store it away for lunch at work.
May 1, 2008 at 01:42PM
Not eating out less is easier said than done. It’s really tough to want to cook a meal after a long day at work and it’s far easier to grab food a block away from home.
May 1, 2008 at 06:15PM
Agreed Jacinda, willpower is a toughie. Like anything you need to find the obstacles that stop you from doing something regularly.
May 1, 2008 at 06:46PM
Very interesting post James!
I live in the US and I don’t know exactly what percentage of our food goes to waste, but I’d guess it’s in the same proportion. I’m particularly sensitive to it because I was born and raised in Haiti, and I’ve seen poverty that people here can’t even begin to imagine.
We definitely need to be more conscious about wasting food. Some of us just don’t know how good we have it…
May 10, 2008 at 05:28PM
What about not buying new food until you eat what you have? You can obviously make an exception for salt, spices and oil.
May 12, 2008 at 09:05PM
The statistic about a third of our food being wasted is astounding. I’m sure we will all be more aware of our shopping and meal planning now. Great tips, too. Thank you!
May 12, 2008 at 09:15PM
I just got back from three days at camp with 120 fourth graders. One of our efforts was to cut down on ORT or wasted food. By the third day the ORT had been reduced from nearly fifty pounds of ORT per meal to about six. I think we were all shocked by the amount of waste.
May 15, 2008 at 05:36PM
Just knowing that a third of our food goes to waste really makes you look at your meals. Whenever I eat out now I look at what is left on my plate and see what percentage of the entire meal I wasted.
May 17, 2008 at 06:48AM
The tip about shopping more often might help waste less food but depending on your transportation it could harm the environment just the same. Perhaps getting a supermarket carpool going with your neighbors where one person picks up the shopping for the other neighbors would help keep food waste low and ensure extra pollution isn’t released from constantly driving to and from the market.
May 17, 2008 at 10:19AM
Adam, you make a very good point. Your mode of transport is definitely something you should consider in all this.
June 13, 2008 at 02:49PM
Food waste is a terrible thing. Whenever we go out to eat, we always take our leftovers home and eat them the next day. Plus, I am very aware of how much I cook so as not to make more than we can or want to eat.
October 5, 2008 at 07:36AM
I agree about the part on only buying what you’ll definitely eat. Lots of times, people buy stuff because they are cheaper or more healthy to eat, without factoring in taste. And apart from using the freezer to save food, you can also use a food saving container or a food dehydrator to preserve your food for a longer time. You might also want to stick to recipes that uses very little ingredients, preferably ingredients that you can use frequently. There are recipe books out there whose recipes only require around three ingredients.
October 5, 2008 at 09:09AM
I currently have a goal to get the freezer as empty as possible before I buy any more food. It’s a great incentive to eat food you keep ignoring and pushing further back in the freezer.
February 5, 2009 at 03:52PM
I think that food wasting is not good because people starve while we do it. Eat right, waste less.
March 1, 2010 at 09:56PM
I was brought up in a household where it was very wrong to waste food. That is why I am very surprised to see other people have large amounts of leftovers when I eat out. If I am with friends, I (courteously) ask them if I can finish their leftovers, or take them home, provided they are not sick. There are many people in the world who are starving. One may not see the correlation between our excess and other’s deprivation, besides the clear injustice. But the amount of time, energy, and resources that goes into producing food is wasted, of which poor nations have little to use.
If we want to end world hunger, we must first learn absolve our excess. We can only help others if we first learn to help ourselves.