Did you know that roughly 33% of all food produced globally is discarded or wasted? That’s around 1.3 billion tonnes of food waste every year.
Throwing away perfectly edible food isn’t only a waste of money, land and water, but it poses a severe environmental risk. This is because most food waste ends up being sent to landfills, where it breaks down and produces methane.
We at Go Dharmic find this especially damaging when people are going hungry who could benefit from that food.
Here are 10 tips and changes to make in your day-to-day life to reduce food waste:
1. Understand Expiration Dates on Food
There are plenty of varied and ambiguous terms placed on food labels: “Sell by”, “Expires by”, “Expires on”, “Use by”, “Best before” etc. It’s easy to misunderstand what these mean and think food has gone bad when it is still perfectly good to eat.
This is further complicated because the terms may have different readers in mind: some are directed to the sellers, and others to the buyers.
As a general rule, phrases like “Sell by” are to inform sellers and retailers when the product should be removed from their shelves, whilst “Use by” and “Best before” are intended to let consumers know when a product will likely go bad.
The key takeaway for you as the consumer is that any dates on the labels are guidelines and suggestions on the state of the food and not definitive statements.
Always be judicious and use your common sense when working out the state of food. Certainly, don’t just look at the label to find out if food is spoiled.
2. Use a Shopping List
Perhaps the most obvious way to avoid food waste is to buy only what you need. By making a list, you are much less likely to overbuy or be tempted by products you don’t really want. And though buying in bulk may be more convenient, such a shopping method invariably leads to more food waste.
As a challenge, make a point to use up all of the food you purchased from your last shop before going out for your next purchase.
3. Plan Meals Ahead
This point follows from the previous one. One of the easiest ways to make sure you are food efficient is to plan your meals ahead of time and be aware of the ingredients you require.
We suggest making a weekly meal plan. A week is typically a short enough time to make a plan you’ll be able to stick to.
You don’t need to be overly strict with your meal plans. Spontaneity and chance are crucial parts of life. It is rather a case of becoming more conscientious about your food habits, to avoid overbuying and needless waste.
4. Use the Freezer
Freezing food is one of the easiest ways to preserve it, as well as a great way to keep food that has lost its firm texture for special dishes.
For example, green vegetables that are a bit too soft to be used in a salad may be kept in the freezer for use in smoothies, stocks, and other recipes.
Even herbs that have lost their bite can be stored in the freezer to be later used in sautés and sauces.
It’s also a great way to ensure you always have a healthy, emergency meal available.
5. Keep Leftovers
While you may not think twice about throwing away leftovers, keep in mind that food waste has a major ecological impact as it decomposes – especially since the majority of it ends up in landfills.
Instead, keep your leftovers for new meals, or new additions to meals.
We recommend storing leftovers in transparent, reusable containers. This helps ensure that you don’t forget about the food, minimises the environmental impact, and is also cost-effective.
Maybe designate a day or meal in your weekly meal plan where you try to make use of your leftovers.
6. Know what’s in your Fridge
While having a well-stocked fridge can be a good thing, a messy, over-packed fridge can be bad when it comes to food waste. It’s just too easy to forget what you have in there.
Help avoid food spoilage by keeping your fridge organized, so you can clearly see what food you have, and be able to recognise its condition – we previously mentioned using transparent containers.
Also, try organising your fridge by placing older food in front and newer food to the back. For example, if you buy a new pack of blueberries, place the newer pack behind the old one. This will help ensure that older food gets used and doesn’t go to waste.
7. Check your Fridge Temperature
It should be between 0-5C. This allows the food to be well-preserved, whilst still being ready to use. Most food produce will last longer if it is properly refrigerated. Whereas, most food will go off quicker if it’s warmer.
As a rule of thumb, the colder the better.
8. Store your Food in the Right Way
Many people are unsure of how to store fruit and vegetables, which can lead to premature ripening and make the food spoil more quickly.
For example, potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, garlic, cucumbers and onions should never be refrigerated. These items should be kept at room temperature.
In fact, keeping some items, like mushrooms, indirect sunlight will help increase the vitamin D content. So, being aware of how to best store certain foods will not only reduce waste but may raise their flavour and nutritional value.
9. Eat the Skin
As long as you have clean, organic fruit and vegetables, you can eat most skins and peels. People often remove and discard banana, mango, kiwi, cucumber, orange and lemon peels, but they’re actually packed with nutrients.
For example, lemon peel hosts a high amount of fibre, vitamin C, and small amounts of calcium, potassium, and magnesium.
For those worried about the texture of peels and skin, an easy solution is to blend them into smoothies or soups. Not only is it cost-effective and reduces your food waste, but it can be nutritionally beneficial.
Now we move to the greatest change you can make to reduce food waste…
10. Help Go Dharmic Distribute Food
We at Go Dharmic have partnered with many food sellers, retailer and vendors over the years, including M&S, Greggs, and Tesco. We regularly make arrangements to pick up, transport and distribute food.
This is not only a great way to reduce food waste, but also give it to those at risk of poverty,
We have distributions all over the UK, India and USA and are constantly looking to form new ones — most recently we’ve arranged distributions in Edinburgh, Watford, New York and many more coming up.
By utilising our existing framework and resources, you can make sure food that would have been thrown away goes to appropriate beneficiaries.
By building relationships with food distributors, whether they are supermarkets, market stalls, restaurants etc., and asking to arrange pickups for vegetarian and vegan foods, if you then reach out to Go Dharmic via email or the Go Dharmic app, then we’ll help arrange a distribution.
If you have any existing contacts with food providers, utilise them and help bring food waste down to a net-zero.
Go Dharmic Email: info@godharmicstag.wpenginepowered.com
