Healthy Life Tip: Let’s prevent food waste

 By Renée Tillotson

So here we are sending food to folks who’ve lost their kitchens and all their food stuffs, and meanwhile, we are most likely wasting good food.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, about a third of the food in America never gets eaten, and we put more than 80% of our household food waste into landfills. Moreover, environmentalists tell us that wasted food is causing a large percentage of global warming.

Want some tips on how to be more responsible about our food?

Shop judiciously:
• Keep an eye on your cupboard and refrigerator to use food while it’s still fresh
• Plan your shopping list around foods you already have and need to use up
• Eat your earthquake/tsunami food before the packages expire!

Find ways to use food that you might otherwise toss:
• That’s how we got French toast: just add stale bread to a milk and egg mix, then sizzle it up with butter on a pan!
• Use just about any combination of savory leftovers from last night’s meal by making it into soup: add water, bouillon, broth, coconut milk, a beverage, or tomato sauce and heat.
• Or take last night’s dinner leftovers, mash them up, shape it into balls or patties, sautee it, and serve it with a suitable sauce or condiment.
• Take any leftover starch, such as rice, quinoa or potatoes and use it to make Egg-in-a-Hole in a hot, oiled skillet with a lid for a tasty, protein-rich dish.

Do your best to keep food out of the landfill:
• Empty liquid food and drink contents into your garden (preferably) or down the drain BEFORE recycling the container
• Compost your food scraps, either in a worm bin outside or a food cycler inside, and get that compost into a garden – your own or someone else’s! They’ll likely share their fresh food with you!
• When you cannot compost, using the garbage disposal selectively for soft, non-fibrous, non-fatty foods is better than putting them in the trash to contribute to greenhouse gasses

Enjoy and give thanks for every bite that you eat!

My 18 year old worm-bin for making composting food scraps to add nutrients and protection against pests in the garden (Left)   
&  My new worm bin replacement! (Right)