Guide to a Low Waste, Sustainable, Eco-Friendly Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is about being with friends and family, enjoying traditions, and practicing gratitude. Unfortunately, it also kicks off one of the most wasteful periods of the year!
It’s estimated that between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, Americans throw away 5 million tons of perfectly edible food. (And, in general, household waste increases 25% during this time frame).
Statistics on food waste always shock and sadden me. BUT, because 40% of food that’s wasted happens in our own homes, we, as consumers, have the opportunity to make a HUGE DIFFERENCE. Individual actions matter, especially when it comes to food waste.
My friends over at Nordic Naturals had me on the podcast Naturally Well for a quick episode about food waste during the holidays. You can check it out here (and a longer episode about tackling food waste in general).
Here are 4 BIG ways that we can lower our waste during the holiday season:
1. Make favorites, stop making “un-favorites”
- The most effective way to avoid wasting food is to make an appropriate amount of food that you and your guests actually eat.
- Don’t make foods that people never eat! It sounds obvious, but we can easily get stuck in traditions and continue to prepare dishes no one touches. Or we make things in amounts that will never we couldn’t possibly finish.
- If you’re anything like I am, I tend to panic that I won’t have enough food. This leads me add items to the menu at the last minute…
- Proper prep and reason can help to avoid food waste at the source- menu creation.
2. Have a plan for leftovers:
- If you’re hosting, you’ll likely be left with a majority of the food, so make sure you have glass or stainless steel containers to store leftovers.
- When you’re cleaning up the post-Thanksgiving meal, assess the leftovers and figure out how to store them properly.
- Don’t forget about the freezer. Freeze as much as you can so that you don’t end up with food that’s spoiled later in the week. (Plus, you’ll be able to enjoy the delicious frozen meals in a few weeks!).
- Take 10 minutes to think about how you can use the leftovers and make creative meals – through extra roasted veggies onto a kale salad, turn turkey (or your meat alternative!) into a sandwich with cranberry sauce, or make sweet potato pancakes with leftover mashed sweet potatoes.
- You can also tell your guests to bring jars/containers with them to take home some of the food!
3. Compost
- Compost biodegradable food scraps like rinds, skins, pits, eggshells, bones and seeds,
- Remember that when food ends up in a landfill, it breaks down anaerobically (meaning without oxygen) because there’s SO MUCH garbage. During that process, it produces methane gas, a harmful greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Just because something is, in theory, biodegradable (i.e., food), doesn’t mean that it biodegrades in the favorable manner when it reaches the landfill.
- If you don’t have a backyard compost, check out this site for composting options near you.
4. Make plant centric dishes
- There’s no doubt that eating more plants and less meat is better for the environment. (Plus, plant-based dishes last longer in the fridge!)
- Include some fun plant-based dishes and don’t broadcast that they’re any different from normal. I find that if you make something delicious, no one cares that it doesn’t have animal-based ingredients.
- Also, shop at your local farmer’s markets and buy “ugly” produce to make your meal even more sustainable.
- And don’t deep fry your turkey (and if you do, don’t put the cooking oil down the drain!).