Reducing food waste

About 40 percent of the United States food supply goes uneaten. Discarded food in homes and food service accounts for 60 percent of this total food loss and is mostly avoidable. The remaining portion is lost or wasted during food production.

Preventing food waste saves money and resources.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates food wastes at almost 14 percent of the total municipal solid wastes in the United States in 2010, with less than 3 percent recovered and recycled. Food in landfills decomposes to produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Here are ways to reduce the amount of food wasted:

Shop the refrigerator before going to the store

Use food at home before buying more. Designate one meal weekly as a “use-it-up” meal.

Move older food products to the front

Move older products to the front of the fridge/cupboard/freezer and newly-purchased ones to the back. This makes it more likely foods will be consumed before they go bad.

Keep your refrigerator at 40 degrees F or below

This will prolong the life of foods. Foods frozen at 0 degrees F or lower will remain safe indefinitely yet the quality will go down over time.

Freeze or can surplus fresh produce

Freeze surplus of fresh produce using safe, up-to-date food preservation methods. Visit the National Center for Home Food Preservation website at nchfp.uga.edu for freezing and canning instructions.

Take restaurant leftovers home

Refrigerate leftovers within two hours of being served. Eat within three days or freeze. Or, choose a smaller size and/or split a dish with a dining companion.

Check product dates on foods

The United States Department of Agriculture/Food Safety and Inspection Service defines them.

Look for recipes that can be searched for by ingredients to use up food at home

USDA's "What's Cooking: USDA Mixing Bowl" website at www.whatscooking.fns.usda.gov offers several tools for searching for recipes with specific ingredients, nutrition themes and meal course. The website www.allrecipes.com features an ingredient search where you can enter several ingredients you have on hand.

Rather than purchasing a food for use in only one

recipe, check if there might be a suitable substitute already in the home

The Cook's Thesaurus website, foodsubs.com, gives thousands of ingredient substitutions. Or consider purchasing only the amount you need for the recipe in the bulk section of your grocery store.

Check the garbage can

If the same foods are constantly being tossed: Eat them sooner, buy less of them, incorporate them into more recipes or freeze them. For more information on recommended storage period for pantry, refrigerator and freezer, check this site: blogs.extension.iastate.edu/foodsavings/tag/food-storage/

Donate safe, nutritious food

Donate unwanted safe, food to food banks, food pantries and food programs.

This information is adapted from Alice Henneman, MS, RDN, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension, Food Reflections Newsletter.