Eat Smarter: Minimizing Food Waste Through Healthier Eating

Food waste is one of the world's biggest problems right now; with around 1.3 billion tons of food wasted every year according to The Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN.) It's frightening to think of the countries suffering from hunger and malnutrition, while the U.S. is wasting trillions of dollars on wasted or lost food. Minimal-ish hopes you'll begin to evaluate your personal relationship with food to brainstorm ways you can waste less. There is always room for improvement!

Grocery stores across the U.S. have a bad habit of only accepting "perfect" or "pretty" produce in their stores. This causes millions of pounds of produce to be thrown out if it doesn't meet the highest of standards. A way to save this food from being tossed is to start picking the "ugly" fruit over the most attractive. As long as it's not spoiled, it's fine to eat. Also, here's a company that collects "ugly" food from being thrown out: https://www.imperfectproduce.com - You can order produce from their site and they deliver it to your door!

Minimal-ish's goal is to inform our audience on ways to live a more sustainable life- in hope's of tweaking your habits, not making you an entirely different person (unless that's what you want.) Veganism and Vegetarianism are two extreme diet changes that have been spreading like wildfire throughout the country. The meat industry is both harmful to animals, and create strain on our natural environment due to the amount of natural resources it takes to breed these animals. By taking meat and/or dairy out of your diet, you'll be helping to save trillions of pounds of water, decreasing vast amounts of CO2 emissions, and saving the lives of animals around the world. There has also been a large amount of research on the benefits to cutting meat and dairy out of your diet. Here's a glance at those benefits: http://www.ilovevegan.com/resources/benefits-of-a-vegan-lifestyle/

In order to give you more perspective on the repercussions of food waste, here are a few statistics from BCFN that will blow your mind- and hopefully push you to be a food sustainability advocate!

- If wasted food was a country, it would be the third largest producer of carbon dioxide in the world, after the United States and China

- Just one quarter of all wasted food could feed the 795 million undernourished people around the world who suffer from hunger

- Food waste in rich countries (222 million tons) is approximately equivalent to all of the food produced in Sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tons)

- Food waste in Europe alone could feed 200 million hungry people

- Food waste generates 3.3 billions tons of carbon dioxide, which accelerates global climate change

We're all capable of improvement and I'd argue it's civic duty to be responsible for our levels of consumption. After all, we're living on this planet together so let's take better care of our environment and the fellow animals living on it!

Happy Monday & Happy Sustaining!:)