Q: How can we reduce food waste in the quarantine?
A: Try stocking up on foods with longer shelf lives like winter squashes, onions, root vegetables, potatoes, and yams. Make sure you use them up before they expire by getting creative in the kitchen – consider making stock out of old veggie scraps, or breadcrumbs from stale bread. And last but not least – remember to think of farmers during this time, and consider supporting a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program to reduce waste, help farmers out, and get delicious veggies delivered to you!
Maya Glicksman and Marie Lachance from our Possibly team looked into this question.
Maya Glicksman: Hi!
Marie Lachance: Hey, Megan!
Megan Hall: So, Maya, let’s start with some background— why should we worry about food waste?
Maya Glicksman: Well, Marie and I aren’t experts on this topic, so we talked to someone who could help us!
Jessica Berry: My name is Jessica Berry. I’m the director of the Office of Sustainability at Brown University.
Maya Glicksman: Before Brown sent all of its students home, Jessica spent a lot of time thinking about how to prevent food waste on campus.
Marie Lachance: She says that every stage of the food production process causes greenhouse gas emissions.
Maya Glicksman: From preparing farmland, to packaging produce with paper or plastics, to transporting it all across the country… really a lot of energy goes into the foods we buy.
Jessica Berry: and then somebody buys it and then they go home and they throw it away.
Megan Hall: How often does food we intend to eat get thrown away?
Marie Lachance: Well, the United Nations estimates that almost a third of all food that’s made for humans is either lost or wasted.
Megan Hall: So now that we are trying to stay home and limit our trips to the grocery store, how do we make sure that the food in our homes lasts as long as possible and doesn’t go to waste?
Maya Glicksman: Well, first Jessica gave us some advice on the types of vegetables we should be buying.
Jessica: Winter squashes, onions, root vegetables, potatoes, yams, things like that … they last a really long time.
Maya Glicksman: Those kinds of veggies are great to keep in the house for longer periods between grocery runs.
Marie Lachance: Jessica also shared her trick for making sure food get eaten before it’s too late:
Jessica: every day I go to the refrigerator, and I look what I have, and I say, “Okay, what looks like it’s going to go bad,” It really takes practice to figure out when’s the last kind of responsible moment you can eat a food [haha]
Maya Glicksman: It doesn’t always work out perfectly – but there are plenty of ways to get creative in the kitchen. You can save veggie scraps like the ends of carrots and onions to make stock, or turn stale bread into breadcrumbs. And, of course, there’s always freezing foods for later.
Jessica Berry: Really the freezer is your friend. A lot of fruits can be frozen, and soups are really great.
Megan Hall: Did Jessica have any other food tips for this pandemic?
Marie Lachance: Actually, yes. Jessica says farmers are being hit particularly hard right now, and the most important thing we can do is support them.
Jessica Berry: If you can do one thing, it’s to invest in a CSA and / or farmers markets
Marie Lachance: CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It’s sort of like a subscription box for produce. You pay a farmer in advance for a regular delivery of fresh vegetables, or other local foods.
Maya Glicksman: CSAs don’t necessarily prevent food waste, but they do help farmers out financially. Also, there’s very little packaging involved, and because the food is local, it can be delivered without emitting as many greenhouse gases.
Megan Hall: Great! Thanks, Maya and Marie! And thanks to Fatima Husain who also helped with today’s episode.
The post How can we reduce food waste in the quarantine? appeared first on TPR: The Public's Radio.