Ways to decrease food waste

Food Waste

Have you ever thought about eating bugs? Well, it might be something you might consider doing if we keep wasting so much food these days. I say this because bugs and insects may be an alternative future to normal meat and foods that contain protein. Wasting food has many effects on our environment and most likely even our future. All effects caused by food waste might affect the way our future will shape out to be. And if you don't plan on eating bugs anytime soon I suggest that you start implementing the following simple steps to waste less food.

The first step to wasting less food is as simple as it gets. When you go to the supermarket to buy groceries, just buy what you need. Don’t be the type of person that buys a product because it is on sale or because they think they might need it for some special recipe that never ends up being prepared. More times than not those are the products that do not get eaten or even used and end up being thrown away. Instead of getting everything you want you can get maybe one item that you don't know if you might use, and then next time that you are there again you pick something else out. The reason I say this is because most supermarkets don’t stop selling items in a week or less. They keep it in stock especially if there is a demand for it. Knowing this you won’t end up wasting as much food and this might even cut down the expenses from the shopping.

Second, this step might be the most obvious of the three but is still very effective. Do you know those big bulk sales on products such as fruits and vegetables? This could possibly be the reason you waste so much food. Buying fresh produce in big bulk is really never a good idea unless you are certain that you will finish everything before it goes bad. Before you buy something like this, ask yourself if you will finish it and try to make the wiser decision. It is one thing to buy toilet paper in bulk but not natural foods, because toilet paper doesn’t have an expiration date and doesn’t go bad after a week or two, unlike food. Sure, the sale price may be convincing but stay away from offers like this, because the most common outcome is that a portion will not be eaten and thrown away.

Finally, but not the most obvious and known tip may seem strange but yet can help reduce massive amounts of wasted food. This tip is to buy as many organic products such as milk, butter, and many other dairy products people may use everyday. Now I know what you’re thinking, organic is just like another word for healthy and non-fat and stuff like that. Well that’s not why you should buy it, it’s because organic food is processed differently and because of this it has the characteristic to last longer. Yes, it might cost slightly more than regular products, but you won’t need to throw it away half full a week after you buy it. So technically the normal product is more expensive since the relation of the amount eaten to price is less convenient. So buying organic is the way to go.

Not wasting is important for many reasons. For example to grow the food that you throw away everyday takes water, and if you throw the food away you are basically wasting water. Water is a basic element to life in general and without it life wouldn’t be possible, so this makes it a valuable resource. So just imagine how much water has been wasted just from the wasted food each day. This is just one of the many reasons that could have big effects on the future of how we live. By using these simple steps could save us millions of pounds of wasted foods, in which the resources  that were not wasted could be used for something useful and innovative for a brighter future.

Works Cited:

“Facts.”Foodwasteeffect.eu.foodwasteeffect.eu/en/facts.web.8 Mar, 2019.

“Food Waste.” ec.europa.eu/food/safety/food_waste_en.Together Against Trafficking in Human Beings. 9 Nov. 2018.web.8 Mar, 2019.

Shanker,Deena.”34 ways to waste less food”.BuzzFeed.com.BuzzFeed Staff.22 Apr, 2014.web.8 Mar, 2019.