Food Waste Friday

No food waste this week: yay!

This was mostly due to buying fewer groceries and trying to use up what we already had. It's nearly impossible for me to let any of the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) produce go to waste because it's so delicious. Plus it stays fresh longer, so we've usually got plenty of time to use it up.

Why should we care about throwing our food in the trash? On top of the fact that it's basically throwing money away, food in landfills has a huge environmental impact. You can read all about it at Wasted Food, Jonathan Bloom's blog about the issue. Americans throw away as much as 40 to 50 percent of the food that's produced. That's more than $100 billion worth of food that could go to feed millions of hungry people. On top of that, food that goes to the landfill contributes to methane emissions. Methane is more harmful than carbon dioxide, and it's responsible for about 20 percent of global warming.

So, if each and every one of us can reduce the waste in our household, we can start to have an impact on the larger problem. Kristen at The Frugal Girl has issued The Waste-No-Food challenge, where people take a photo of their food waste each week in an effort to focus on the issue and share tips for wasting less.

The challenge is working for us, although there have been a few setbacks. If you're new to this blog, I should mention that it takes most people weeks or months before they reach a point of no food waste. For most of us, our intentions to eat healthfully cause us to purchase more food than we can actually eat, and it ends up going bad.

How did you do this week? Do you have any great tips for wasting less? Please leave your tips, advice, thoughts and questions in the Comments section.