Scientists reveal the four things you can do to reduce your food waste – including apologizing for discarded items
In the UK alone, around 9.5 million tonnes of food is wasted. There is no doubt that we need to get better at eating leftovers.
Letting good food rot is not only a tragic waste, but also leads to the emission of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that causes global warming.
Japanese scientists have come up with four tips to reduce the amount of food from the refrigerator that ends up in the trash.
From storing leftovers in clear containers to apologizing to your food, here’s how to store the edible leftovers in your fridge.
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Scientists in Japan have come up with four tips to reduce the amount of food from your fridge that ends up in the trash
1. FROM TOP TO BOTTOM
When we open the refrigerator, we often find a chaotic chaos of containers, aluminum foil and half-empty jars.
Very few people store produce based on age. That means leftovers from last night’s dinner are sitting next to the vegetables from last weekend’s roast.
Kohei Watanabe and Tomoko Okayama, waste management scientists at Teikyo University in Tokyo, propose a simple rule: put products that are close to their expiration date at the very top.
When we open the fridge, we should automatically grab something from the top. These are the products that need to be used up the fastest.
Fresher produce is stored at the bottom, but this system does require you to spend time moving produce upwards as it ages.
If your fridge is a mess like this one, Japanese scientists suggest some tactics to restore order and reduce waste
2. TRANSPARENT CONTAINERS
As the old English proverb goes, ‘out of sight, out of mind’.
According to the researchers, this may be why food stored in opaque packaging is so often forgotten.
They advise to store the contents of the refrigerator in transparent containers, so that every time we open the door we are reminded of what we can still eat.
“Often the reason food spoils and gets wasted is because you forget about it in the refrigerator and later find it spoiled,” Watanabe said. the BBC.
Transparent containers also allow us to quickly see what should go on top and take into account foods that do not spoil as quickly.
“Fermented foods are still alive and therefore don’t spoil as quickly,” Watanabe adds.
Always using transparent containers reduces the chance of food being ignored, unnoticed or otherwise forgotten (archive photo)
3. APOLOGIES!
Have you ever felt guilty about throwing food in the trash?
It may not surprise you that there is a Japanese word for the feeling of regret we get when we waste resources: ‘Mottainai’.
The researchers hope that Mottainai, like the English saying ‘Waste not, want not’, can play a role in the fight against food waste.
To enhance the Mottainai sentiment, they suggest apologizing to our food just before throwing it away.
By pretending that our food has feelings or even a conscience, we are less likely to give it an unworthy end.
Watanabe and Okayama handed out special stickers depicting two people with their hands clasped, with the text: “I can’t eat you. I’m so sorry.”
The main applications of compostable plastics include food packaging, bags, cups, plates, cutlery and bio-waste bags (see image)
They encouraged participants to put a sticker on each piece of food they threw away and to take a moment to consider the message on the sticker.
4. RED STICKERS
By colouring the containers in the refrigerator, we can also determine which foods we want to store in the refrigerator first.
For example, a useful traffic light system uses red stickers to indicate that food should be eaten quickly, while green stickers are for food that has a longer shelf life.
Other factors that lead to food waste include poor meal planning and the obsessive tendency to cook new meals every night instead of eating leftovers.
Another important reason is impulse buying in the supermarket. In other words, buying food that we don’t actually need.
We also need to be aware of the difference between ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates on food products – a very important distinction.
According to Watanabe, foods that have already passed their expiration date may still be perfectly edible if they are low-risk products (such as spices and cheese).
“Smell it, look at it, most things last a long time after their expiration date,” he says.
However, do take note of the official advice from the Food Standards Agency (FSA): ‘Eating food past its use-by date carries a significant risk of foodborne illness.’