6 Novel Ways to Reduce Your Food Waste
Some new twists on a global problem
Food waste is a global problem. As much as 30-40% of the food produced is wasted somewhere along the way from the field to the dinner plate. That equals millions of pounds of rotting food, enough to feed 2 billion hungry people with ease!
The challenge with food waste is the ubiquitous nature of the problem. It isn’t any one step in the food supply chain that creates waste. It is EVERY step in the supply chain creating waste. And that include YOU and your kitchen.
I am sure you have all heard or read about potential food waste solutions. Everything from shopping using a grocery list to properly storing and eating your leftover meals. But here are six novel solutions to food waste that might just kick-start your imagination and get you to follow through more often.
1) Donate your food scraps to someone raising chickens
Chickens live everywhere that people do for good reason. For a relatively small amount of feed, you get fresh eggs in return. Chickens are particularly useful food producers because they have extremely versatile food habits themselves. That means they are very happy to chow down on vegetable peels, overripe bananas, leftover dairy, cheese, bruised tomatoes, and so on. The only important rule to follow is to NOT feed them something rotting. Moldy food is not okay (for anyone - except maybe worms)!
My neighbors happily bring me their veggie peels and overripe fruits for the chickens rather than tossing that food into the garbage. They just throw the scraps into a bag in the freezer and bring it over when they come to pick up their eggs for the week. Win-win!
