Most of the blame for food waste is targeted at grocery stores and restaurants, but consumers are partially responsible. The good news is that we can do something about it. Everyone can help in the fight against food waste in their own homes. The National Resource Defense Council has created an online platform to educate people and share ideas about reducing food waste. The website includes tools such as a calculator that helps you decide how much food to prepare when having a dinner party, meal prep plans, recipes that turn food scraps that would normally be trashed into delicious meals and great food storing techniques. You can sign up at http://www.savethefood.com to learn more.
Also, The Community Market in Gypsum is working to address food waste through recovery, and The Community Market believes in healthy people, strong communities and environmental sustainability. Strong communities thrive when everyone has access to quality healthy food. Therefore 40% of what The Community Market distributes is fresh produce, and they serve it to an average of 800 community members per week.
They understand that transportation can be an issue, so they have partnered with under-served communities to host markets in locations that are convenient and accessible. The Community Market has partnerships with local farmers and grocery stores to recover food that would be wasted. The partnerships with local farmers also allows them to repurpose any food that cannot be eaten by humans by giving it to animals, and anything leftover from that is then composted and turned into healthy soils for Eagle County. The best way to get involved and help the Community Market is by volunteering time and/or making donations. Learn how you can volunteer, make a donation and access food at http://www.eaglevalleycf.org/the-foundation.
Here are three tips that can help you reduce food waste.
• Learn how to properly store food. Properly storing food is an important step to making your prepared meals last longer. Online resources such as http://www.savethefood.com has great techniques for storing all types of foods.
• Practice smarter planning. Make a meal plan for the week or month. Only buy what you need, and learn how to use food scraps that would be normally trashed to make tasty meals.
• Get involved in The Community Market’s food rescue work. If you have any unopened, still edible and good quality food that you won’t use, donate it instead of tossing it. To learn more and get involved, visit eaglevalleycf.org/the-foundation.
Stephen Beane is an Actively Green intern at Walking Mountains Science Center. You can contact him by emailing stephenb@walkingmountains.org.