Grades 8-12
Tutorial 1. What's on your plate?
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Did you know you can eat in a way that improves not only your health, but the health of the planet, too? Eating more fresh vegetables and limiting how much meat you eat can have a positive impact on your health and are important actions for a healthy planet.
However, it's not just what you eat but what you DON'T eat that matters. Uneaten, wasted food contributes to climate change. Climate change describes a change in the average conditions — such as temperature and rainfall — in a region on Earth over a long period of time. By adopting a few Earth-friendly food habits, you can reduce your impact on climate change. Food waste contributes to climate change
When your food waste goes into the landfill, it is buried under other waste and slowly decomposes without oxygen. This type of decomposition is anaerobic (meaning without oxygen) and results in the formation of methane gas. Methane is a greenhouse gas that gets trapped in our atmosphere and absorbs the heat of the sun leading to global warming. In fact, methane is 84 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. This problem is one of the reasons food waste prevention is included in California’s plan to combat climate change. |
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Scientists work with state and city governments to develop a Climate Action Plan that includes strategies to reduce food waste and greenhouse gas emissions. In California, the legislature has recently passed a law requiring cities, businesses and schools to create a plan to manage their organic waste (food waste and yard/green waste). These changes will eventually determine how you throw out your waste at home and at your school.
But there are no laws or regulations to make people eat in a more sustainable manner, such as meals in which little or no waste created. This is up to you. We will all need to develop new habits around reducing food waste. Keep reading to learn how you can reduce the amount of food waste you and your family produce.
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Small shifts create big changes
Share these ideas to reduce food waste with your family and think about which ones you might try. Additional recipes for leftovers.
Plan Ahead
Discuss the meals you want to eat for the week with your family. Make sure you let your parents know if you’ll be home for the meal or eating with friends. This way, your parents won’t buy or prepare more food than is needed. If you are making a meal, check out the refrigerator and make use of ingredients that may spoil soon. Those aging bell peppers would make a great fajita dish.
New Life for Leftovers
Maybe you don’t feel like eating the exact same thing two days in a row, but you also don’t want to throw out any food that was uneaten. You can reuse the leftovers in a new dish. For example, plain white rice from your dinner can be made into a yummy stir fry for lunch. Just add a few veggies and an egg in a pan. Stir it all together with a dash of soy sauce.
Soup's On
What can you do with carrot bottoms, celery leaves and onion ends when you are done with them? Those are perfect ingredients to make a vegetable broth. You can freeze the items while you collect them and then boil them together. After the veggies cook in water for at least an hour, strain the liquid and season to taste. Experiment with other recipes. Leafy greens from carrots or beets make a great pesto.
Bruised but not Forgotten
When you see a bruised apple or an overripe banana you may be tempted to throw it in the trash. Before you do, give that piece of fruit a second chance. Overripe bananas are needed to make banana bread and that apple — minus the brown spot -- can be sliced for an apple pie or chopped for a gourmet salad. If there are lots of spots, applesauce is the way to go.
First In, First Out
One time-honored trick to reducing food waste is to create a system where you place all of the food that is likely to spoil first in the front of your refrigerator. Seeing it every time you pop open the door will remind you to enjoy it before it goes bad.
It’s a Date
While it is important to know when it is no longer healthy to eat perishable foods, the expiration date on food packaging often calls it quits too early. The best way to tell if a food item is still good to eat is to “use your senses”. Usually, if something like milk or yogurt is spoiled, you can tell pretty easily after taking a quick sniff once it's opened. If you see mold spots or the produce appears mushy, it’s better in the compost bin than on your plate. Learn more about expiration dates.
Ditch the Baggie
If we are being careful to protect the planet by changing our eating habits, we should not overlook a key contributor to pollution — the plastic baggie. Recall from the Recycle Right Tutorials, plastic bags are made using petroleum, and the manufacturing process releases harmful toxins into the environment. In Oceanside, that plastic baggie cannot be recycled and can end up polluting our waterways and beaches, causing harm to our marine wildlife.
Save it for Later
The way you choose to store your leftovers can reduce waste as well. Clear containers allow you to see the contents inside and will make it more likely you’ll remember what leftovers you have waiting in your refrigerator. Along those lines, keeping those leftovers in the front of your fridge might also help keep any “science projects” from growing in the very back.
Share these ideas to reduce food waste with your family and think about which ones you might try. Additional recipes for leftovers.
Plan Ahead
Discuss the meals you want to eat for the week with your family. Make sure you let your parents know if you’ll be home for the meal or eating with friends. This way, your parents won’t buy or prepare more food than is needed. If you are making a meal, check out the refrigerator and make use of ingredients that may spoil soon. Those aging bell peppers would make a great fajita dish.
New Life for Leftovers
Maybe you don’t feel like eating the exact same thing two days in a row, but you also don’t want to throw out any food that was uneaten. You can reuse the leftovers in a new dish. For example, plain white rice from your dinner can be made into a yummy stir fry for lunch. Just add a few veggies and an egg in a pan. Stir it all together with a dash of soy sauce.
Soup's On
What can you do with carrot bottoms, celery leaves and onion ends when you are done with them? Those are perfect ingredients to make a vegetable broth. You can freeze the items while you collect them and then boil them together. After the veggies cook in water for at least an hour, strain the liquid and season to taste. Experiment with other recipes. Leafy greens from carrots or beets make a great pesto.
Bruised but not Forgotten
When you see a bruised apple or an overripe banana you may be tempted to throw it in the trash. Before you do, give that piece of fruit a second chance. Overripe bananas are needed to make banana bread and that apple — minus the brown spot -- can be sliced for an apple pie or chopped for a gourmet salad. If there are lots of spots, applesauce is the way to go.
First In, First Out
One time-honored trick to reducing food waste is to create a system where you place all of the food that is likely to spoil first in the front of your refrigerator. Seeing it every time you pop open the door will remind you to enjoy it before it goes bad.
It’s a Date
While it is important to know when it is no longer healthy to eat perishable foods, the expiration date on food packaging often calls it quits too early. The best way to tell if a food item is still good to eat is to “use your senses”. Usually, if something like milk or yogurt is spoiled, you can tell pretty easily after taking a quick sniff once it's opened. If you see mold spots or the produce appears mushy, it’s better in the compost bin than on your plate. Learn more about expiration dates.
Ditch the Baggie
If we are being careful to protect the planet by changing our eating habits, we should not overlook a key contributor to pollution — the plastic baggie. Recall from the Recycle Right Tutorials, plastic bags are made using petroleum, and the manufacturing process releases harmful toxins into the environment. In Oceanside, that plastic baggie cannot be recycled and can end up polluting our waterways and beaches, causing harm to our marine wildlife.
Save it for Later
The way you choose to store your leftovers can reduce waste as well. Clear containers allow you to see the contents inside and will make it more likely you’ll remember what leftovers you have waiting in your refrigerator. Along those lines, keeping those leftovers in the front of your fridge might also help keep any “science projects” from growing in the very back.
Tutorial Challenge
Do you like to cook or want to develop your culinary skills? Get ready to show off in the kitchen and try this Chopped Challenge: Sustainability Edition.
- Take a peak in your fridge at home. Locate three items that are in jeopardy of getting thrown in the trash. Your challenge is to create or find a recipe using those three ingredients. And then, of course, make the recipe. Hint: you could probably type all three ingredients into a Google search and add the word recipe to get a few ideas.
- Serve your creation to your family or expand the challenge to include siblings or friends. Find an impartial judge and see who comes up with the tastiest sustainable dish.
