Easy Tips for Food Conservation at Home

Looking for easy ways to conserve food at home? Here are some easy ways to conserve food in a family or by yourself:

1) Weigh your waste.

Weighing your food waste can be really effective! When you weigh your waste, whether it be at breakfast or dinner (or all meals), try to set goals to reduce the amount of pounds every time. This strategy works great with kids too. In fact, my sixth grade class took a trip to New Hampshire to learn in an outdoor classroom. The staff implemented this strategy in the mess-hall. After setting goals and coming up with a reasonable prize for us to earn if the goal was achieved, it was easier than ever to reduce food waste! Pro tips: your family's prize could be to see a movie or go get ice-cream, whatever works for you! Kids have lunch at school? No problem! Just tell them to bring home what they don't eat of their bagged lunches or record what they didn't eat of their bought lunches.

2) Make only the amount of food your family will eat.

As obvious as it may seem, don't make more food than your family will eat. More often than not, leftovers will get ignored or thrown away. Similarly, only put what you will eat on your plate. Leftovers are okay! But just be mindful; is that extra leftover meal that you are planning to make going to be eaten, or is it going to stay in the back of the fridge until it has to be thrown away?

3) Make a family compost.

Although this tip won't help you preserve fruits and vegetables, it will transform it into soil that is rich in nutrients. Composting is a great way to transform uneaten or spoiled produce in to something useful rather than throwing it away. Instead of letting your orange peel rot in a landfill, make a compost! A compost is essentially a crate or a bucket like the one above where decomposable items are placed. This includes apple cores, peels of fruit, or a leftover salad. To get your compost going, add soil, water to moisten it, and some leaves on the ground as well as some grass and pinecones. We also suggest adding some natural decomposers such as earthworms, compost bacteria, or fungi. These will speed up the process and will produce richer soil. You can find these in a store, online, or outside. Overtime, the compost materials will break down, producing a nutrient-rich soil. This soil is fantastic for gardening! Composting is a great way to help the environment!