CAN: Act Sustainably

Reduce:

Ideally we are purchasing only what we need and not wasting what we have. Some simple techniques to help us do this include meal planning, creating shopping lists, organizing the refrigerator and cabinets to ensure we use food that is nearing its expiration, learning how to best store food, and reducing clutter in the refrigerator so that we know what we have.

Reuse:

Don't throw out leftovers - use them! Create sandwiches, add them to salads, bring them to work for lunch. Be creative.  Add a flourish like pickles or another condiment to add some spark. There are also techniques to make foods, such as lettuce, perk up again. 

Recycle:

Turn the food into something else, like stews and soups. Find recipes online that will use that ingredient. If you have fruit that is beyond its time and not moldy, cut it into pieces and put it in a suet cage and hang it from a tree, or leave it on a rock for fruit eating birds. You can also make yourself a smoothy. See the following section for great ideas on how to recycle those ingredients and leftovers into delicious new meals. 

Eat Seasonally: 

Eating foods in season increases the likelihood that they are produced and procured locally, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of transport from other regions and countries. For a useful app that tells what is in season locally, click here.  

Unfortunately the confusing dates stamped on our food is leading to unnecessary food waste. So let's examine what these dates mean and why most food is perfectly fine after these dates. 

Best by date/Best if used by date is just informative and not to be taken too seriously. It means that the food will probably be at its peak freshness before or on that date. Most foods are fine well after that date and do not need to be discarded. Expires on/Expiration date is the only date regulated by law and food should not be sold or consumed after that date. Sell by date means that the food is nearing its expiration on that date - it may be fine for awhile after that date. To be sure, just consume those products closer to the sell by date.  Check out this great article that walks you through how to determine when food should not be eaten. Basically, it is not the date on our food that determines when food must be tossed.  The article will explain how to use your smell, vision and taste to identify rancid food. This is a technique that has worked since humans arrived. In most cases keep the food and don't throw it out! Soups and stews have always been the delicious repository of not-so-fresh, but good, ingredients. 

Generations before us knew that food was a precious resource and, as such, never to be wasted. Many of the traditional techniques to get the very last use out of food have created our cherished comfort foods: soups, stews, quiches, pot pies, chilies, and more. 

A great and delicious way to reduce our food waste is to use leftover ingredients in other dishes. Soups and stews can accept vegetables that have seen better days as well as all parts of the vegetable, including the ends and even the leafy tops.  This is a great article on ways to creatively reduce your food waste through cooking.  If you are the chef in the family, consider these food saving tips.

Here are some recipes to inspire you to get started:

Amazing Waste Cookbook - 50 recipes to recycle your food

Jamie Oliver's recipes to reduce food waste. All you have to do is the metric conversion. It is worth it!

15 clever recipes to reduce food waste

30 ways to use food scraps

30 recipes for food scraps

If you have too much of an ingredient or an ingredient nearing its end of life, there are apps and sites that will provide you with recipes based on an ingredient.

Compost your food waste

We can make a difference in reducing food waste through thoughtful purchases, creative cooking, buying locally sourced products, and dropping off food scraps right here in Ardsley at Anthony F. Veteran Park. Your meat, fish, veggies and more can be turned into compost in this Town of Greenburgh food scrap program. If you have green or brown food/garden waste (not meat or dairy products) you can compost them through your own backyard compost system.   

We were honored to partner with Greenburgh Nature Center for one of our Ardsley 2021 Earth Month events to learn about composting and food waste reduction from Lindsay Cohen, Greenburgh Nature Center's  Director of Sustainability at that time.  Listen to the recording of the webinar here and view Lindsay's informative presentation here. 

Learn more about simple composting in this GREEN Growing article.