Some people love cold pizza, others struggle with finishing food from a previous meal. We all have great intentions when we put our leftover food away, but it can be hard to motivate to repeat a meal. Remind yourself that leftovers are free, and it's better to eat them now, instead of waiting too long and then having to wash out the moldy containers once the food has gone by! Tip: Store leftovers in clear containers so you can see what you have. It helps to have a dedicated shelf in the fridge for meals that should be eaten first. 

My mom will cringe at this tip, but give food a look or a whiff before you toss it! Don't go by the date on the package. The dating labels are used by food companies to recommend when food tastes the best, but it's no indication of safety. Here's the truth, straight from the USDA website: "Manufacturers provide dating to help consumers and retailers decide when food is of best quality. Except for infant formula, dates are not an indicator of the product’s safety and are not required by Federal law." Here are the definitions of the different labels you will see when cleaning out your fridge and pantry:

• Best-By indicates when a product will be the best flavor.
  
• Sell-By tells the store how long to display the product for sale to help manage inventory. 
• Use-By is the last date recommended to use the product at peak quality. 
• Freeze-By indicates when to freeze the product to maintain peak quality. 

Since 30% of food is wasted at the consumer level, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the USDA encourages companies to use the "best by" dating system, as research shows this terminology best conveys to consumers that the date is an indication of quality. The FSIS feels that much food waste is due to confusion created by food date labels. This confusion causes us to throw away perfectly safe food and spend more money replacing it! 

If there is one thing we all learned during the pandemic, it was how to make dinner from our pantry! This is a skill we should continue every couple weeks. It requires us to take stock of what we have, and get creative in using up ingredients. Make minestrone from the half-used bags of frozen vegetables, hummus from canned chickpeas and tahini, pasta with a sauce made from canned tomatoes and leftover veggies. Need inspiration? Here's 30 healthy recipes made from pantry staples from the lovely cooks at Love & Lemons. 

The Zero-Waste Chef is the ultimate food-waste-reducing queen! She made a video inviting us to go grocery shopping with her. She put on her coat, scarf, grabbed a reusable bag...and then opened her fridge! I loved this video and think about it often. Make your fridge your first stop before heading to the market. You'll realize you have something already on your list, and you can meal plan around an ingredient that needs to be used up.

At first this was a hard tip for me to follow—why pick a misshapen vegetable when you can have a perfect one? Maybe it took having kids of my own to realize that "everyone is special." But now I find it a fun challenge to find the ugly fruit in the bunch. Plus, once you start going to farmers' markets and seeing what "real" food looks like, it becomes easier to feel good about the multitude of shapes and sizes of produce! 

The favorite part of my week is walking into my local bakery with my beeswax bread wrap! I love the act of wrapping the bread in my own "packaging" right in the store. However, finding stores where you're able to purchase food and household staples without packaging can be a challenge. Litterless.com has crowd-sourced a state by state directory of local stores and co-ops that welcome containers from home. Don't see your favorite local shop? Submit a tip here. No local option? They have a nationwide list of online resources, too. 

Many local food growers and manufacturers reuse containers. It saves them money by needing less packaging, and furthers their sustainable initiatives. For example, for the past 12 months, I've purchased all of my coffee beans in reusable glass containers! I bring my empty glass jar to swap when I pick up a new batch of beans. All I had to do was ask to get the process started. Now many neighbors participate; they pick up their coffee beans at our "spice cabinet!" Some vendors may require a deposit on the container, which will be credited on the next purchase. 

Too much food? Bring it to work! Text your friends! Donate to a food pantry. Sharing food is better than it becoming compost (but that's the next best option before the landfill).

Meal planning is the act of choosing what you are going to cook and eat ahead of time. It guides your grocery shopping, and allows you to choose meals that may use many of the same ingredients. When you plan ahead, you can avoid buying random items in the grocery store because they look good. There are tons of resources online for meal planning. If you like cookbooks, Gneiss Spice recommends, The Ultimate Meal Prep Guide from America's Test Kitchen.

Anne-marie Bonneau, otherwise known as The Zero-Waste Chef is the most non-preachy leader in the food waste space. Her belief is that if 1000s of us did 10% better, it will have a much bigger impact that one person reducing 90% of their waste. This attitude is inspiring, because we all can do a little bit better, can't we? Follow her, get her e-newsletter and order her book filled with recipes to make the most of all your fridge food scraps! 

An informative and entertaining documentary produced by celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, "Wasted!" takes you around the world, showing the 1.3 billion tons of food that gets thrown out each year and the people fighting hardest to prevent it. Oddly, it's not depressing! It celebrates food and you'll be inspired to reduce your waste after watching. You can rent it on most streaming services, including AppleTV and YouTube.