Waste Not, Want Not

By Ashley Michael, Heifer Web Editor

The concept is simple: Use food until it’s gone. Yet all around the world, food is discarded after meals, leftovers forgotten in the fridge are tossed and nearly-full containers of post-dated items end up in the wastebasket. While discarding spoiled or old food is the easiest method of cleaning out the kitchen, it’s certainly not the smartest choice for the environment or for your wallet. There are choices available, though, most of which take little time but offer huge payoffs for your family, community and the environment.

Maximize Your Leftovers

Leftovers often don’t have the same appeal as a freshly cooked, hot meal. Most excess food becomes trash eventually. Once discarded, the valuable resources used to produce the food, including your time, are spent. This holiday season, begin maximizing the food you buy and cook by using leftovers rather than tossing them. Here are some suggestions for making leftover food delicious and useful:

• Safely store leftovers. Properly storing food keeps it safe and fresh. Food that’s not put away correctly can cause illness, so make sure you practice food safety. For tips on storing food, check out the site below:
  http://www.ehow.com/how_9540_store-leftovers.html
• Invite friends to share. Fun times with friends and family can take the focus off repeat meals. And, under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, your guests probably won’t know the difference between a meal hot off the stove and one that has been reheated.
• Prepare leftovers correctly to improve taste. Microwaves are a great invention, but some foods will taste best when reheated in more traditional ways.
• Think outside the container. Combine leftovers with other food in the house to create unique combinations rather than eating the exact meal you ate for dinner last night. Several web sites offer tools and tips to create new meals from leftovers:
  www.leftoverchef.com
  http://www.recipegoldmine.com/leftovers/leftovers.html
  http://www.fabulousfoods.com/school/cstips/Leftovers_Tips
• Freeze food for later use. Toss entire meals into the freezer allows for reheating later – a great time saver. Also consider saving portions of unused ingredients for later use; for example, freeze small amounts of vegetables to use later in stew.

When food has fulfilled its purpose in feeding your family, consider some of the following ways to discard of scraps further.

Donate Food Scraps to Local Farmers and Zoos

Start a Compost Pile

To keep food from rotting uselessly in a landfill, begin a compost pile. Facilities are available to compost food in remote locations, but you can also start your own pile in the backyard. Composting is beneficial to the soil and can make your garden more plentiful. On a larger ecological scale, compost piles strengthen the environment, making it friendly to natural inhabitants. A successful pile takes a little more than just dumping unwanted foods, so be sure to check these sites for guidelines:
http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Organics/HomeCompost
http://www.recyclenow.org/r_composting.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_3541_begin-compost-pile.html

By using leftovers wisely, you’ll be making economical choices for your family as well as good environmental choices by avoiding waste. And if you can get more out of the meals you cook, you’ll also be saving time – one of the most precious resources of all!

For more on food recovery efforts, visit http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/reduce/wastenot.htm.