Food

6 tips to reduce food wasting

consigli anti spreco
Written by EFW Staff

Food wasting is banished

Do you know that in 2014 the Italian Ministry of Environment dedicated a day against the food wasting? The chosen day was 5th February even if its main aim has to be constant all year round: avoid wasting, optimize food resources and food consumption without throwing them in the bin.

The initiative of the Day against Wasting hasn’t been created by chance but facing the astonishing numbers of the food waste. Even if they are always better, in Italy every year each person still throw in the rubbish 76 kilos of food for an amount of about 9 billion of euros, the 0,5% of our GDP.

The most astonishing numbers come from the wasting of the wholesale during the production and distribution process of the food products. The retailers (food shops, supermarkets and superstores) throws away 300 thousands tons of products together with 2 billion tons from the agroindustry.

If there is a part of the world that has nothing to eat, the western countries produces great amounts of food that would never been eaten but threw because it is expired or went rotten. Even before reaching the stoves and the lavishly decked tables, without taking into account the leftovers that are thrown in the rubbish.

Food waste is connected to the problem of the disposal and the resources used in vein to produce a food that would never been eaten. It represents an economic waste that everyone could fight paying attention to certain things. In this way the house finances, your fridge and you will be glad to fight useless wasting.

spreco

Here you can find 6 tips to reduce food wasting and the damages caused by the pollution and the exploitation of the resources caused by the agroindustry that produces high quantity of surplus food:

1. Check the fridge and the pantry daily to know which items are about to expire in order to eat them before it is too late; the new yogurt but rotten, darken carrot and the limp zucchini, pasta leftovers that are staring at you for a week and the forgotten breaded cutlet that looks like a sole. How many times do we throw in the rubbish this kind of food? To avoid it, it is better to check the fridge before preparing new dishes, consuming the food that we find in the fridge with new recipes, different from the previous day;

2. Before doing shopping at the supermarket, prepare a list of the things that you really need and buy only those things without filling the trolley of food that you won’t eat or will go rotten. Estimate an average consumption and buy the right quantity of food without being attracted by the offers that could tempt you to excessive purchases.

3. Small purchases rather giant monthly ones. A great method to keep under control the quantity of food purchased, consumed and left is to do small purchases more often, as needed, rather than few monthly purchases;

4. Buy seasonal fruits and vegetables, possibly from the local markets avoiding the large retailers;

5. Less transformed food and more fresh ingredients. The food industry of the large retailers consumes many natural resources (water and land first of all) and it produces pollution. If it is possible, it is better to prefer fresh ingredients rather than ready-to-eat and pre-packaged food. Soups, minestrone, vegetables? It is better to buy directly from the peasant rather than the frozen ones. The same for meat and fish. In this way we will reduce the production of rubbish to be disposed, no packaged, boxes and plastic bags;

6. Last but not least advice: reuse the leftovers to create day-after and no-waste recipes. There are thousands of recipes of the culinary tradition to dispose of the leftovers, from the bread to the cooked meat. Soon you will find an article with the best no-waste recipe of the day after, absolutely to try!

About the author

EFW Staff