My Journey to a Waste-Free Life
In an effort to educate people on ways to reduce food waste in a greater effort to end world hunger, I needed to start with myself. I made a list of ways I could limit the amount of food I waste in my own everyday life, and I decided to implement these practices into my daily routine for a week, and here’s how it went:
Day 1: I started my journey to reduce my food waste on Sunday, which also happens to be my grocery shopping day. My goal for grocery shopping was to get only what I needed and what I knew I would eat, nothing less, nothing more. I don’t know about the rest of you but for me, one of my favorite things is roaming around the grocery store and buying new, cool looking snacks (which I never end up finishing), which made this task a little difficult. In the end, I got milk, eggs, yogurt, some fruit, carrots, and popcorn. My total came out to be less than half of what I usually spend, and I’m not complaining.
Day 2: Monday’s are busy days for me. I have class all day, I work late, and usually end up going out to eat with my boyfriend. We both have a bad habit of ordering way too much food and never finishing it. We chose to go to our favorite Mexican restaurant where we know the portions are huge and we always end up getting full off the free chips in the beginning. In our effort to reduce waste, we shared one entree and ended up completely full with no leftovers.
Day 3: Tuesday was pretty boring. I cooked all of my meals for the day. For dinner I found some turkey and bread that was about to expire in the fridge so instead of ordering something like I usually would, I made myself a sandwich so my groceries wouldn’t go to waste.
Day 4: My cleaning day is Wednesday, and since I had a little extra time on my hands, I decided to clean out my fridge. I found more unopened, almost-expired foods than I would’ve liked to, and I knew I wouldn’t eat them all. Luckily, I used to volunteer at a local food shelter in high school and I still keep in contact with the organizers. They were more than happy to take the food and distribute it for me.
Day 5: On Thursday, my family came over for dinner and I cooked for all of them. I tried to not to go overboard with large portions and various sides, but I did end up with some leftover chicken and corn. I made sure nothing was thrown away and packed the leftovers in the fridge.
Day 6: Friday came and I did not want to eat leftovers. My solution was to cook something new using the leftovers. I made a corn salsa with the leftover corn, and shredded the chicken to make chicken tacos. No one would have noticed I used leftovers to make them and they were delicious.
Day 7: On my last day of my journey to reduce food waste, I noticed that almost all of my groceries from Sunday’s trip were finished and I had no leftovers rotting away in the fridge. I used my last bit of yogurt and fruit for my breakfast and went to dinner with my family where I got a kids meal because I know I don’t eat that much. The portion size was perfect.
After this week, I am even more eager to create a world in which we reduce food waste. These last 7 days, I have not only saved money and space in my fridge, but I also feel so much better about myself. Things like sharing an entree, donating your expiring food that you won’t eat, and using your leftovers to cook new meals are such simple things to incorporate into your lifestyle and I highly recommend doing so. I will definitely keep these practices in my routine as much as I can, not only for the good of myself, but also for the greater good of our future.
