Tips to Reduce Food Waste During the Holidays

Each year, the average American family of four loses $1,500 to uneaten food ---that’s about 1,160 pounds of food. With the holidays around the corner, it is timely to think about how we as individuals can keep our household food waste in check. How can we reduce food waste? We may not need the turkey or ham that serves 12 people when only six people are at the table. Many of us like turkey sandwiches the next day with a slice of pumpkin pie, we may waste a lot of perfectly good food if we overprepare and don’t take steps to freeze or store leftovers properly until they can be eaten. Wasting food is a waste of money that could be used somewhere else. Below are a few tips that can help reduce food waste at our holiday meals and save you money.  

Plan your holiday meal

Before you go to the grocery store or order online, plan and make a list to reduce the chance that you’ll buy more than you need. We eat some of the same foods and seasonings for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Buy them when they are on sale. Research shows that making a written list can help shoppers avoid impulse purchases, which may include food they don’t need. For turkey, one rule of thumb is to plan for one pound per person, or a pound and a half if you want leftovers. For smaller-than-normal gatherings, consider preparing only the favorite family side dishes to go with the main course. You might serve one type of your favorite rolls or dessert instead of several. If you want to prepare all of you family’s traditional dishes, consider cutting recipes in half if you are cooking for fewer people this year. If you do have guests who want to bring a dish, coordinate in advance on who is cooking which dish.

While preparing dishes, save the scraps for future cooking

Free scraps like vegetable peelings and meat trimmings for your future culinary creations. Use them later in savory broths and hearty soups to provide comforting warmth on cold days. Or cook the scraps to make other foods or ingredients. You can season potato peelings and bake them into chips, or saute’ extra chopped onions to make recipe-ready caramelized onions.

Store or give away leftovers

Place food in clear containers marked with the contents and the date. That can increase the chances that the leftovers in the fridge will be remembered and actually eaten. If you have guests who want leftovers, let them choose their favorite dishes so that their take away containers match what they really enjoy. Give extra cans of vegetables and pie filling to your local foodbank.

Be creative with your leftovers

Extra rolls and bread that are getting stale can be made into bread pudding. Try your hand at making homemade turkey stock with the bones or make turkey chili with leftover meat. Whip extra buttermilk or cream into French toast batter. Start you own family tradition and enjoy it for years to come.