Wellness Newsletter BMK Wellness Newsletter Nov - Dec 2018 | Page 3

Insider’s Viewpoint: Expert Supermarket Advice
Reducing Food Waste
By: Judy Barbe, RD from Live Best
April 24, 2018
Place an “Eat First” sign in your refrigerator for ingredients that
need to go. Use these foods for lunches, snacks, or to repurpose
into another meal.
After 4 weeks, measure and record your weekly food waste
amount. I hope you will see how much food and money you saved
compared to when you started.
Source: Barbe, Judy. “Expert Supermarket Advice | Fruits &
Veggies - More Matters.” Fruits & Veggies More Matters, 24
Apr. 2018, www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org/i
We buy food with the best of intentions. We don’t mean to be
wasteful. But have you thrown out food this week?
Perhaps you bought vegetables because you thought you
should be eating more of them. But then didn’t cook them or
know how to make them taste good.
Or you bought food planning to eat at home but then ended
up going out. Or the ingredients intended for a specific occa-
sion went unused because it never happened.
So the banana ripens before you peel it. The lettuce turns
brown before the salad is made. The fish turns before you
get to it.
You’re not alone. It’s estimated that we toss about 20 per-
cent of the food we buy.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that
more food reaches landfills and incinerators than any other
single material in our everyday trash. Forty four percent of
food waste occurs at home. Yet, a Johns Hopkins study
found that many of us underestimate how much food we
throw away. More than half said they threw away just 10 per-
cent of their food, while 13 percent say they didn’t throw
away any. Nearly seventy five percent claimed they wasted
less than the average American.
Ready to see how much food and money you are throwing
away? You can do your own wasted food challenge. For one
week, measure how much food your family wastes in a week
and record the volume. Track how much you throw away and
the reason you didn’t eat it. It could be that you ate out, didn’t
know how to cook the food, didn’t feel like cooking, bought
too much, didn’t store it properly. Also note the approximate
value. If you paid $3.00 for a container of strawberries and
threw away a third, you lost a dollar to wasted food.
After you’ve observed and recorded, try these suggestions
over the next 2 weeks to see if you can find solutions that
work for you.
Shop your own kitchen first so you purchase with a purpose.
See what you have on hand before you head to the store.
Keeping in mind how many meals you will cook this week;
use these foods to create a weekly menu.
Make a shopping list. With this list you are less likely to buy
impulse items and more likely to buy what you expect to
use. Will you use the food you buy in jumbo bulk sizes? Is a
BOGO going to be eaten or will it be tossed? When it ends
up in the trash, it is not such a good deal after all.
Cook the perishable foods first. The sooner you get to them,
the easier it is to serve as snacks and meals through the
week, saving time, effort, and money.
3