Jun 11 2008
Leftovers: Avoiding Waste Saves Money on Food
Several years ago, a study was done by the Department of Agriculture to see how much food American’s waste in a year. The findings were astounding. They estimated that 96.4 billion pounds of edible food was wasted. This is the food that isn’t bad, isn’t molding, isn’t expired, etc. This is the food that was STILL edible. Wow!
Depending on who is throwing away the food, everyone seems to have a reason for it.
Grocery stores throw away food because of spoilage or cosmetic blemishes. Sad. Since I would have no problem purchasing a dented can or box and would have no problem purchasing fruit that might have a black spot or two. It doesn’t render them useless.
Restaurants throw away anything they don’t use in a day. This is a standard, and is a very sad trend to see. Throwing away good food seems unacceptable to me. I cannot even imagine.
And then is the one that we actually have control over. Consumers tend to throw away everything from fruit with black spots to restaurant leftovers. These are all items that are still edible and can and should be consumed. Why waste all that money?
Did you know that American’s are some of the most wasteful of all? We discard a whopping 27 percent of the food that is available. This is a disturbing trend, because when broken down it comes out to about a pound of food every single day per each individual American. Roughly speaking this would mean that my family alone would be wasting seven pounds of food a day. Wow!
Obviously I know this isn’t true for our family, since I spend a great deal of time trying to work leftovers into our meals, as well as to freeze foods I am not sure we will get to right away.
However, with this knowledge - it makes it a lot clearer that we need to quit wasting food, quit being so judgemental about the cosmetic appearance of our foods, and start incorporating leftovers into our weekly meal plans.
I will try to offer more suggestions and recipes that will help out with eliminating some of your families waste. I might begin implementing a daily theme for the articles, not sure yet. If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please feel free to share.
when we were in london a few years ago, my husband and i found a chain sandwich/healthy, quality food-to-go shop called pret a manger. we really enjoyed the food there, and ended up going there nearly once a day. but most of all we loved their ethic - any food they had at the end of the night they donated to the local shelters and charities. they recently opened up a store in NYC which follows that same ethic. i wish more restaurants would follow suit and do the same with their leftovers each night.
http://femalegamer.today.com