We invite you to join Thistle in the food waste fight. In addition to eating plant-based or plant-forward whenever possible, here are some other ways to reduce your household food waste!
Many of these food waste solutions are taken from the Thistle Thoughts blog, which is full of ideas that help both you and the planet to live well!
Plan to Meal Plan
When you impulse buy perishable food, it often ends up lost and spoiled in your fridge or pantry. Slimy baby spinach. Eye-ridden rotten potatoes. Funky, furry berries. We’ve all been there, looking at a science experiment staring back at us from the fridge. Meal planning is key to fighting this type of food waste.
Armed with a shopping list that’s built around a week or so’s worth of well-planned meals, you’ll be less likely to waste the food you buy at the grocery store. And when your food is stored in a super organized fridge, freezer, and pantry, you’ll keep better tabs on what you have in stock and achieve even greater food waste reduction in your household.
Here are some great Thistle posts all about meal planning and pantry organization:
- What’s for Dinner? Meal Planning and Meal Prep in a Busy World
- Our Favorite Pantry Organization Ideas
- A Glimpse Into Some of Our Favorite Pantry Staples
Show Leftovers Some Love
With the right approach to meal planning (outlined in the above link!), you’ll have a regular flow of healthy and craveable food waste-fighting leftovers that taste nothing like the “leftover night” of childhood.
Burrito bowls for dinner transform into burritos for lunch. Last night’s sides - quinoa or brown rice and some roasted vegetables - become the base for a hearty salad. Get creative; the possibilities are endless. When you resist ordering takeout and instead opt for the perfectly edible leftovers in your fridge, you’re doing your part to reduce food waste.
Befriend Your Freezer
By properly freezing food, you make it (almost) immortal. Most foods freeze really well. When in doubt, look it up!
Here are a few different approaches to taking advantage of your freezer’s life-preserving power:
Preserve Perishable and Prepared Food
Fresh ginger? Freeze it (and easily grate while frozen!). Leftover cooking wine, chipotle in adobo, canned coconut milk, or tomato paste and sauce? Freeze it in ice cube trays or muffin tins. Then pop the cubes into a freezer bag. Cooking a big batch of soup? Freeze a few portions. Have a ton of unused fresh herbs? Freeze them in oil to use in cooked dishes later. That lovely artisanal loaf you got at the farmer’s market? Slice and freeze it.
Sensing a pattern here? Don’t waste food; freeze it! And when you pair this freezing habit with stellar meal planning and leftover love, you’ll soon be a food waste reduction superstar.
Turn Scraps Into Stock
Peels from onions, carros, garlic, etc. and other veggie scraps like herb stems, spent celery and green onion, and the tough green part of leeks are perfect for making homemade veggie stock. Each time you cook, toss veggie scraps into a freezer bag. When the bag is full, it’s time to make stock. Which you can then...wait for it...freeze in jars or tubs. Your future soup, risotto, and other saucy dishes will thank you.
Tip: Avoid using veggie scraps of the smellier variety (e.g. broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, etc.). Trust us on this one.
Whatever you freeze, don’t forget to label and date it. It’ll help you practice “first in, first out” and keep your freezer super organized — two key habits for fighting food waste.
Create a Compost System
You’re a meal plan master. You love leftovers. Your freezer is your food waste fight partner in crime. Amazing! Yet even with all of the best food waste solutions in place at home, you won’t eat every morsel. Stems and peels and such need someplace to go. These foods might not nourish your body but they can nourish the planet. That’s what composting is all about.
There are two different ways to keep food out landfills and get it into the soil instead:
Municipal Composting
Alongside trash and recycling services, several cities offer convenient curbside or drop-off composting. When an entire city composts organic material instead of sending it to the landfill, it puts a dent in methane emissions and the soil gets a huge nutrient boost. Sign us up!
In order to help your city achieve a zero food waste goal, be sure to follow its guidelines (check out San Francisco’s here) for what can and cannot be composted. Sometimes, adding the wrong materials to the compost stream causes contamination and creates even more waste. Typically, all yard trimmings, kitchen scraps, and most paper products work. Stuff that’s surprisingly compostable includes wine corks, fireplace ashes, human and animal hair, natural fibers, and dryer lint.
If your city doesn’t offer municipal composting, reach out to officials or start your own community-based program.
DIY Composting
Calling all gardeners! If you’ve got the space, consider fighting food waste by composting at home. Check out our Composting 101 post on the blog. It covers bin options, the need for both “green” and “brown” organic material, what to add (and not add) to your bin, and how to use the finished product.
Level Up With Thistle
When you eat with Thistle, you’ll waste less food. Unlike grocery shopping, our ready-to-eat meals mean no more forgotten food rotting in your fridge. By ordering only what you need for every meal and snack of the day, you can reduce your food waste by up to 85%!
We all have a part to play in the food waste fight. Here at Thistle, we won’t stop. We’ll keep looking for new and improved food waste solutions. Join us in the fight. Be it eating a plant-based diet, regularly meal planning, taking up composting, or all of the above, let’s unite to make food waste — and all of the environmental and social problems it causes — a thing of the past.
We invite you to join Thistle in the food waste fight. In addition to eating plant-based or plant-forward whenever possible, here are some other ways to reduce your household food waste!
Many of these food waste solutions are taken from the Thistle Thoughts blog, which is full of ideas that help both you and the planet to live well!
Plan to Meal Plan
When you impulse buy perishable food, it often ends up lost and spoiled in your fridge or pantry. Slimy baby spinach. Eye-ridden rotten potatoes. Funky, furry berries. We’ve all been there, looking at a science experiment staring back at us from the fridge. Meal planning is key to fighting this type of food waste.
Armed with a shopping list that’s built around a week or so’s worth of well-planned meals, you’ll be less likely to waste the food you buy at the grocery store. And when your food is stored in a super organized fridge, freezer, and pantry, you’ll keep better tabs on what you have in stock and achieve even greater food waste reduction in your household.
Here are some great Thistle posts all about meal planning and pantry organization:
- What’s for Dinner? Meal Planning and Meal Prep in a Busy World
- Our Favorite Pantry Organization Ideas
- A Glimpse Into Some of Our Favorite Pantry Staples
Show Leftovers Some Love
With the right approach to meal planning (outlined in the above link!), you’ll have a regular flow of healthy and craveable food waste-fighting leftovers that taste nothing like the “leftover night” of childhood.
Burrito bowls for dinner transform into burritos for lunch. Last night’s sides - quinoa or brown rice and some roasted vegetables - become the base for a hearty salad. Get creative; the possibilities are endless. When you resist ordering takeout and instead opt for the perfectly edible leftovers in your fridge, you’re doing your part to reduce food waste.
Befriend Your Freezer
By properly freezing food, you make it (almost) immortal. Most foods freeze really well. When in doubt, look it up!
Here are a few different approaches to taking advantage of your freezer’s life-preserving power:
Preserve Perishable and Prepared Food
Fresh ginger? Freeze it (and easily grate while frozen!). Leftover cooking wine, chipotle in adobo, canned coconut milk, or tomato paste and sauce? Freeze it in ice cube trays or muffin tins. Then pop the cubes into a freezer bag. Cooking a big batch of soup? Freeze a few portions. Have a ton of unused fresh herbs? Freeze them in oil to use in cooked dishes later. That lovely artisanal loaf you got at the farmer’s market? Slice and freeze it.
Sensing a pattern here? Don’t waste food; freeze it! And when you pair this freezing habit with stellar meal planning and leftover love, you’ll soon be a food waste reduction superstar.
Turn Scraps Into Stock
Peels from onions, carros, garlic, etc. and other veggie scraps like herb stems, spent celery and green onion, and the tough green part of leeks are perfect for making homemade veggie stock. Each time you cook, toss veggie scraps into a freezer bag. When the bag is full, it’s time to make stock. Which you can then...wait for it...freeze in jars or tubs. Your future soup, risotto, and other saucy dishes will thank you.
Tip: Avoid using veggie scraps of the smellier variety (e.g. broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, etc.). Trust us on this one.
Whatever you freeze, don’t forget to label and date it. It’ll help you practice “first in, first out” and keep your freezer super organized — two key habits for fighting food waste.
Create a Compost System
You’re a meal plan master. You love leftovers. Your freezer is your food waste fight partner in crime. Amazing! Yet even with all of the best food waste solutions in place at home, you won’t eat every morsel. Stems and peels and such need someplace to go. These foods might not nourish your body but they can nourish the planet. That’s what composting is all about.
There are two different ways to keep food out landfills and get it into the soil instead:
Municipal Composting
Alongside trash and recycling services, several cities offer convenient curbside or drop-off composting. When an entire city composts organic material instead of sending it to the landfill, it puts a dent in methane emissions and the soil gets a huge nutrient boost. Sign us up!
In order to help your city achieve a zero food waste goal, be sure to follow its guidelines (check out San Francisco’s here) for what can and cannot be composted. Sometimes, adding the wrong materials to the compost stream causes contamination and creates even more waste. Typically, all yard trimmings, kitchen scraps, and most paper products work. Stuff that’s surprisingly compostable includes wine corks, fireplace ashes, human and animal hair, natural fibers, and dryer lint.
If your city doesn’t offer municipal composting, reach out to officials or start your own community-based program.
DIY Composting
Calling all gardeners! If you’ve got the space, consider fighting food waste by composting at home. Check out our Composting 101 post on the blog. It covers bin options, the need for both “green” and “brown” organic material, what to add (and not add) to your bin, and how to use the finished product.
Level Up With Thistle
When you eat with Thistle, you’ll waste less food. Unlike grocery shopping, our ready-to-eat meals mean no more forgotten food rotting in your fridge. By ordering only what you need for every meal and snack of the day, you can reduce your food waste by up to 85%!
We all have a part to play in the food waste fight. Here at Thistle, we won’t stop. We’ll keep looking for new and improved food waste solutions. Join us in the fight. Be it eating a plant-based diet, regularly meal planning, taking up composting, or all of the above, let’s unite to make food waste — and all of the environmental and social problems it causes — a thing of the past.
