Hey team, and welcome back to one5c. Joe here, with an inspirational message for y’all this fine Thursday:
We’re No. 1!
America has its issues, but we sure are the best at a lot of stuff. We have the world’s largest economy. Our country is responsible for countless life-changing innovations, like the lightbulb, breakfast cereal, and the Fast & Furious. We’ve achieved towering victories in sports and competitions across the globe. But there’s one honor we’ve gotta start losing, and fast: America wastes more food per person than anywhere else in the world.
More than anywhere else, we take perfectly good grub and send it straight to the landfill, where it ferments without the aid of oxygen and produces planet-warming methane.
I’ve been as guilty of this as anyone—and my 4-year-old would enter the global villain rankings if our chickens didn’t save her butt with their love of table scraps.
Even if you don’t have fowl roaming your yard, food waste is a stupid problem that’s absolutely solvable. And the impact could be huge: Even before you account for the land and resources required to make what people throw away, global food waste accounts for 3.3 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. If food waste were a country, it would be the world’s third-largest emitter, right behind China and the U.S. (go, team!). These emissions take the form of methane, which has as much as 80 times the warming power of CO2.
In the land of the free, food waste accounts for more than 24% of our trash. We Americans throw out around 304 pounds of food per person per year—or about 1,200 calories per day. Beyond being an environmental problem, it’s unjust; nearly 13% of Americans experience food insecurity, meaning they lack regular access to enough food to meet their needs.
The good news is that this problem is eminently fixable, and we’ve got the tools to help you do it. Our latest cheat sheet is all about food waste: where it comes from, how it impacts your life, and how you can stop it. Corinne, Sara Kiley, and our merry band of brilliant contributors have been working hard on this project for the past several months. It’s full of original reporting and verified facts.
What follows is just a wee sample of what’s on the menu. Check it out, and please make sure to share with everyone you’ve ever met—because chances are, you’ll catch them just as they’re scraping a half-plate of meatloaf into the trash.
Take care of yourself, and the rest of us, too. —Joe
5 easy ways to cut food waste right now
Designate an “eat me first” zone
Keep the most-perishable items in eyesight in a designated “eat me first” zone toward the front of the fridge to ensure they aren’t forgotten. Use this as a place to store any items that have spoiled quickly in the past, as well. (We’re looking at you, baby spinach and raspberries.) Putting food that could be on the fast-track to the bin front and center makes it easier for everyone in the household to know what’s on the low-waste menu.
PLUS: More food storage tips
Cook with what you’ve got
Not all of us are ready to compete in an episode of Chopped, but we don’t have to. Figuring recipes that will incorporate what you’ve got lying around doesn’t have to all happen in your head. An app like Super Cook, for example, lets you enter what you have on hand, and the app suggests recipes based on those ingredients. You can even ask ChatGPT to whip up some ideas if you feed it a list of ingredients—though we can’t vouch for how good of a cook it is.
PLUS: More cooking tips
Buy produce you can eat all of
When you’re looking at fresh fruits and veggies, focus on produce that you can eat most, if not all, of. This includes beets (along with their tops), carrots, broccoli (eat those stems!), and cauliflower. If you’re buying something that spoils quickly, like fresh berries, buy in smaller quantities. If you can’t: Plan to freeze extras before they mold or go mushy. If you’re not sure how to use the loose ends, stash them in a gallon-sized freezer bag and simmer up a homemade stock once it’s full.
PLUS: More shopping tips
Find a community composting program
We get it, not every bit of trash that comes out of the kitchen is edible. But those eggshells, coffee grounds, corncobs, and banana peels don’t have to get a one-way ticket to the landfill. If you’re able and inclined, today’s as good a day as any to start looking into making a compost pile to turn those extra bits into the nutrient-rich substance farmers call “black gold.” If going it alone isn’t feasible for you, you can try seeking out one of the U.S.’s more than 200 community composting programs—or firing up the app ShareWaste to find a neighbor looking to build their pile.
PLUS: The basics of composting
Always get a doggie bag
“Plate waste” makes up more than two-thirds of the grub restaurants toss every year, according to ReFED, a nonprofit focused on food waste solutions. Because of contamination concerns, little of what gets left on the table can legally be repurposed for another meal. That means the untouched bread basket isn’t getting sent to the next table once you leave—nor are any sides you forgot to say “no” to. The dead-simple answer here? Put it all in a doggie bag. If you do have leftovers but know you won’t get around to them, ask if anyone else at the table wants them. They might have a better shot at being eaten at someone else’s house.
PLUS: More about food waste in restaurants