If possible, you have to avoid wasting food at home. Millions of people around the world are starving right now, and have no resources to put food on their plates. Unfortunately, those who are lucky enough to live in a society where food is abundant don’t seem to care about what they have.
To initiate changes at home, you have to start by changing your grocery shopping practices. Make sure that you only buy what you need. Avoid buying things in bulk, especially if you’re not going to use them. You will avoid wasting resources if you stick only with what you need.
Even if you already changed your practices, it’s still possible to waste food. These are the things to do if you have leftovers at home.
Be creative
Just because they’re leftovers doesn’t mean you can’t eat them anymore. You have to be creative and think of ways to reuse them. You can come up with a new recipe with the leftovers as primary ingredients. There are a lot of dishes that you can create with meat leftovers, or even fruits and vegetables.
Preserve the food
There are different preservation practices used in the past that are still useful today. They help in making sure that your food lasts longer. Smoking dishes is one of them. You can also turn leftover fruits into jams, so they last longer. In various cultures, there are lots of preservation techniques that you can also follow if you want to extend the life of your leftover food.
Share what you have
If your leftovers are still clean, you can share them with other people. Perhaps, your neighbor would appreciate your act of kindness. Transfer the dish to a different container and share it with the people next door. Another way of sharing it is by using relevant apps. There’s an app that allows you to take a photo of your leftovers and post it online. If anyone sees it and feels interested in eating it, they will notify you and find a way to pick it up. It’s quite useful for people living in apartments since it’s easy to pick up the dishes.
Dispose of them properly
You can’t expect that leftovers will be useful, especially if they expire quickly. Dishes with coconut milk or tomatoes, for instance, don’t last long. The best thing to do is to dispose of them right away. You can start a pit at home, so it’s easy for you to dispose of the leftovers. Make sure you don’t mix them up with other types of trash. You can partner with a company providing junk removal services to ensure your trash goes to the right place. For biodegradable trash like leftovers, you can leave them in the pit.
Keep practicing these habits until they start to become the norm at home. You won’t feel guilty anymore because you know that you don’t do anything to waste food. You also need to tell others what your practices are so they’ll follow you.