5 Tips To Reduce Food Waste

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

In addition to composting or putting your pet in a bowl, there are plenty of ideas for how to reduce food waste, particularly plant-based. Every thrifty housewife has her own secrets. Let us recall the five simplest of them

Environmentalists around the world are increasingly concerned about the increase in food waste. All new ideas are coming up to deal with this problem. But no matter how hard scientists try, only adequate behavior of people and awareness of their responsibility to nature will help to solve the problem. For example, here are five simple guidelines:

1. Helpful reminders

In large modern refrigerators, food is easy to get lost. Often, the owners learn about their existence only at the next washing of the refrigerator, or after the appearance of an unpleasant odor. Experts advise placing food on the shelves based on shelf life. It is better to put the food that must be eaten first in a special box. In order not to forget about it, it is useful to attach a sticker to it with a bright inscription: "Eat me first!" This will allow you to save perishable food and not forget about them.

The same method can be applied when storing food in the cellar: blanks that are about to expire must be marked with stickers in advance or put in a special box, or put on a separate shelf. When closing the cans, you need to write on them not only about their contents, but also about the date of their spin.

2. Freezing

If the boxes and containers marked with the inscription "eat me first" are overfilled, and you cannot eat them in a timely manner, then the good old freeze will come to the rescue. This is one of the easiest and most effective ways to reduce food waste. If the food is approaching the expiration date, but there is no time to eat it yet, then you need to transfer the food to a container or freezer bag and send it to the freezer. You can even do this with yogurt or sauces: it is most convenient to pour them into ice trays before being sent for freezing. Then they are good for making various smoothies, cocktails and dishes.

3. Vegetable soup

Soup can be made from almost any plant culture. If you have some withered carrots, celery, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes and herbs in the refrigerator, you can make them into the ingredients of a fragrant vegetable soup. This dish is even prepared from the tops of plants, for example, healthy cabbage soup is obtained from the leaves of beets or carrots. For aroma, a little bay leaf is added to them, garlic, salt and pepper to taste.

Such dishes are prepared very quickly. They can be harvested for future use and stored in the refrigerator. Other goodies are cooked on the basis of vegetable broth: stew, aspic, roast, etc. This method is also intended to reduce food waste.

4. Place for stubs

In a house where there are small children, fruits or vegetables with a bitten off side are common. Kids love to bite off a small piece of a juicy fruit and immediately proceed to the next one. Sometimes, whole kilograms of bitten off fruits and vegetables accumulate in this way. It is physically difficult to eat them all. Well, do not throw away such fruits!

They can be used to boil compotes or cut into slices for drying. It's easier to just send it to a juicer to make fresh juice or smoothies.

5. Connecting high technologies

This idea has not yet taken root in Russia, but it is already working well abroad. Representatives of the ecological society have developed a special application (for example, OLIO), which is installed on mobile phones and computers. With its help, you can contact people, shops, farmers, catering establishments, etc., who are nearby, in order to share excess food or food waste.

To do this, you just need to photograph the food, describe their condition and expiration date, and upload the photo to the program. Those who wish to buy or exchange food can respond to an offer of interest to them. This method is especially useful for novice gardeners who find it difficult to calculate the exact amount of vegetables and fruits, and also have no experience in storing them. For example, if they have too many zucchini, and there is nowhere to store them, then you can safely post an ad in a newfangled application. It also saves after large-scale holidays and a feast, after which a lot of food remains.