How to Prevent Food Waste and Become Environmentally Friendly?

Useful Eco-friendly Saving Tips That Really Work

Citation: https://earth.org/how-to-reduce-food-waste/

We may not be able to eat expensive cuisine every single meal, but we definitely want to eat delicious food every time we eat. However, take some time and think about how much food you’ve wasted over the years, think about how ordering takeout destroys your already-limited budget, think about how empty your kitchen is. We all know that our meals often cost us a lot. We all want to make every ingredient count. We all want to save as much money as possible whenever we can.

Here are some tips for you to save time, money, and the environment.

The Golden Rule: Never Waste Food

Citation: https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/food-footprint-explainer-series-which-diet-creates-the-least-amount-of-food-waste/

This is obnoxious.

The secret to cutting your budget is to avoid food waste. Do not waste the food that you purchase. Wasting food is like throwing your money away. You are going to end up purchasing even more food that you do not necessarily need. Just eat everything that you buy (even if they have already expired) and buy ingredients only after you finish them. You are definitely going to notice a sharp drop in your food bills.

It’s also good for the environment. The majority of the wasted food ends up in landfills and then produces carbon dioxide emissions, thus polluting the environment. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, over 40% of the food in the US goes to waste. The results are staggering -- over 1.3 billion tons of food end up in landfills every year. If we can manage to reduce our food waste, we can definitely slow down climate change. (See more about why I abhor food waste here.)

1. Buy in Huge Portions

If you really like ground beef or any ingredient, buy huge portions of them when you visit Walmart or Costco. The greater the portion, the cheaper the per kilogram price. You can save a lot if you eat them frequently. Try to buy food with a longer shelf life, so you are less likely going to worry about their freshness and therefore avoid eating the same ingredients every single day. (You are probably going to waste most of your food if you eat ground beef, which is going to become stale fairly quickly, every single meal. You may even become insane and dump all the nasty beef out of your window.)

Don’t worry if you buy more than you need. Just try out different cuisines and cooking styles. You can transform your ingredients into something remarkable and distinctive. Check here for my recipes on different types of ingredients.

2. Freeze your ingredients

People often say that frozen meat loses its juice and tenderness, but this is not necessarily true. You can simply defrost your meat by moving it from the freezer to the fridge. DO NOT put it at room temperature as your ingredients may rot.

3. Distribute your ingredients immediately after purchase

If you don’t pack your meat upon purchase and fumble with it before you cook, you are going to waste a lot of time (Remember: Time is MONEY) and may end up using too much meat than you otherwise would need. Measure your meat and put it in plastic bags or Tupperware, so you can cook more efficiently.

4. Buy What You Need the Most

This is the key to efficiency. If you have a limited budget, your purchasing priority should be the ingredients that you use the most, in essence, the ingredients that you use in most of the dishes you make. For example, if you love garlic and make garlic fried rice, garlic oil, garlic chicken, etc, you should definitely buy more garlic.

5. Eat foods that are in season

This will save you some transportation costs, and you can generally buy fresher ingredients. You can also help out local farmers by purchasing in-season ingredients from them.

6. Recycle your food

When you have some leftovers, you should save them overnight and either eat them the next day or make new dishes out of these leftovers. Either way, you are going to prevent food waste and manage your budget more effectively.

You can also turn your food waste into compost for your garden (be more environmentally friendly).

The Bottom Line

There are a lot of ways to budget money and become environmentally friendly from your eating habits. The most important tip, though, is to NEVER WASTE FOOD. If you waste food, you are never going to achieve any of the tips shown above. You should always respect your food. There should be no excuses. It doesn’t take any effort. By avoiding waste, you are definitely going to make a big difference in both your budget and the environment.