The Feed

We Don’t Waste recovers a lot of food. Over 97% of the food we provide to community members is recovered or donated, but did you know there are times when We Don’t Waste purchases food? It is a much smaller percentage of the food we distribute, but it is still an important part of our impact. 

When We Don’t Waste makes a food purchase, it is because we want to supplement the foods we are already bringing in to fill in potential nutritional gaps. These are often the categories of food that are harder to source, such as proteins and allergen-free options. 

We also want to ensure that the food we bring to Mobile Food Markets and our nonprofit partners is culturally relevant and provides a diverse choice of diets. Because food purchase is a necessity of our work, it’s also important for us to support local businesses. 

Businesses like Eagle Rock Ranch are at the top of the list when we’re thinking about making a supplemental food purchase. They’re a cattle ranch based in Jefferson, CO, that focuses on sustainable and ethical practices that keep their cows happy and healthy, and are dedicated to the stewardship of the land they’re on. The ranch and its staff are all registered with the Beef Quality Assurance Program as well. 

Erin, who manages the Eagle Rock Ranch Mercantile, recently spoke with us about our partnership. When asked how she feels knowing that the beef we purchase feeds people facing food insecurity, she said “It’s rewarding to know that premium, high-quality beef is going into the hands of individuals and families that need it most. As a small business, our partnership with We Don’t Waste is a wonderful way to give back locally to help reduce hunger and food waste.“ It really is a win-win-win for everyone involved!

Another way We Don’t Waste acquires food is through TEFAP (The Emergency Food Assistance Program). This program, operated by the USDA, is a program that gets food to low-income Americans through partnerships with nonprofit organizations and schools. TEFAP is a crucial and integral part of the We Don’t Waste Mobile Food Market program. 

Since We Don’t Waste operates primarily as a food recovery program, we cannot always guarantee that we have recovered all the necessary food groups to meet a person’s daily nutritional needs, including protein, dairy, fruits, vegetables, grains, and oils. For instance, during the winter months, sourcing fresh produce locally becomes more challenging due to reduced local agricultural output. The TEFAP Program plays a vital role in ensuring that we fulfill all portions of the daily dietary requirements while also supplementing our community with the diverse range of foods we have recovered. 

By having these additional modes of food acquisition, we’re able to ensure that we are always able to bring enough food to our partners and our Mobile Food Markets. If you would like to get involved with food donation, explore options for partnership, or just generally become more involved with We Don’t Waste programming, explore more of our website!

It’s officially Black History Month! It’s a time to learn, appreciate, and celebrate the history of Black Americans. There’s no denying that the history of what Black people in the United States have lived through is a long and complicated one. However, amazing stories of perseverance, optimism, and hope arose from years of working to thrive in a culture that was actively oppressive. Stories that need to be shared. 

Food access and food recovery wouldn’t be what it is today without a long line of Black activists who paved the way for food justice within their communities. We thought we’d take a moment to highlight just a few of the people who have been critical to our understanding today of the intersections of food, nutrition, oppression, and liberation.

Karen Washington has received many accolades for her work in food justice. She is the founder of Black Urban Growers,  an organization working to empower people through food sovereignty by supporting growers both in urban and rural settings. She is responsible for coining the term food apartheid, which describes the intentional, systematic separation of people from food access, farmland, and business opportunities within the food industry. 

Dr. George Washington Carver is one of the earliest documented activists for food sovereignty. Although best known for discovering over 300 uses for the peanut, Carver’s research extended far beyond this. While working as a professor at Tuskegee University he taught people about soil revitalization and natural fertilization. He shared his knowledge outside of academia through a mobile classroom where he taught the same lessons directly to farmers. 

Pam Jiner is Denver’s own. She helped bring food to Montbello with Black farmers at Freedom Acres Ranch throughout the pandemic. An award-winning community leader in Denver, Jiner takes a holistic approach to health within the Montbello community, a historically disenfranchised neighborhood. She does this with the organization Montbello Walks, which gets people moving, and helped with food distribution at the peak of food insecurity for the neighborhood. 

Ron Finley is a revolutionary urban gardener based in south central LA known as the “gangsta gardener.” He began growing guerilla gardens on dirt patches within the neighborhood as a means to bring fresh, healthy foods to a neighborhood heavily affected by food apartheid. He was cited by the city for growing without a permit, which started a large community effort to fight antiquated policies preventing people from food access. His mission for over a decade has been “empowerment through growing our own food.” 

Fannie Lou Hammer was an activist and community organizer most known as a leader during the civil rights movement. In the 60s, Fannie formed a Freedom Farm Cooperative to help farmers experiencing food insecurity. This cooperative spanned 640 acres and helped provide locals with space to grow crops in order to promote self-sufficiency, create access to affordable housing, and build entrepreneurship opportunities. 

Shirley Chisolm was not only the first Black woman to serve in Congress, but she was also massively important to getting food access to those needing it. She was the architect of the Women Infants and Children (WIC) program, which, to this day, is a critical source of nutrition for pregnant people and children. She also helped pass the Agriculture and Consumption Act, the predecessor to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). 

Huey P. Newton & Ericka Huggins, a founder and member, respectively, of the Black Panther Party, an organization responsible for creating the Free Breakfast for School Children Program in Oakland California. At its peak, the Black Panthers were providing breakfast to school-aged children at 45 locations across the country. This program was the first of its kind. The government had no such program, and they wouldn’t create one on a federal level until 1975, nearly a decade after the Panthers’ program. Today, free and reduced-cost breakfasts and lunches are responsible for feeding 14.57 million children across the U.S., which would not have been possible without the influence of Huey and Ericka and the pressure of their wildly successful breakfast program. 

Today is America Recycles Day, and we couldn’t be happier to celebrate a day highlighting sustainability! Our great state of Colorado has made some large strides to prioritize sustainability initiatives in the last few years. One example is that Colorado was one of six municipalities in the country that made changes toward stricter recycling processes at the beginning of the year. 

The primary focus was the reduction of single-use plastics through the implementation of a 10-cent fee on plastic bags across the state, and the banning of polystyrene containers for food-related businesses. This was just the first  step in a multiyear-long plan to boost the state’s overall recycling rate.

Currently, Colorado is a state with an incredibly low rate of recycling. We are at a surprising 16% recycling rate, compared to the national average of 32%. This has been a major motivator to implement a statewide free recycling program for households. Because this program has a few years until its rollout, we figured we could share some facts and bust some recycling myths to celebrate America Recycles day. 

• You may wonder if some uncommon household objects you want to get rid of are recyclable. A broken lightbulb, leftover paint, batteries, old chargers, the list goes on! The city of Denver has created a guide, where you can type in what it is you’re trying to recycle, and it will tell you what that process looks like. 
• There’s a myth that recycling isn’t worth the effort because most of what’s sent out isn’t actually recycled. Over 90% of what is sent to Materials Recovery Facilities, known as MRF’s (the facilities that process materials to be recycled) is recycled, and is sold within North America. 
• The United States annually recycles enough iron and steel scrap metals (known as ferrous scrap), by weight, to build more than 900 Golden Gate Bridges — a bridge stretching nearly 9,000 feet.
• Recycling is good for the economy! In a study by U.S. Recycling Economic Information Study (REI), the US Recycling Industry employed 1.25 million people whereas the US Solid Waste Management industry employed only 0.25 million people. 

Here at We Don’t Waste we educate our community on the full lifecycle of food, and how to prevent all kinds of waste be kind to our planet. While reducing waste at the source and reusing products are ideal, it is important to remember that recycling is the next best alternative for sustainability. 

When it comes to organic waste products, recycling inedible food isn’t really an option, but composting is! Learn more about how to get started composting on our blog.

If you can’t prepare your veggies before they spoil, try blanching them to freeze them in time! What is blanching? It’s the process of rapidly heating and cooling fresh foods to prep them for extended stays in your freezer. 

The benefits of blanching food, instead of just throwing it in the freezer, are numerous! The process helps prevent enzyme breakdown, preserving the flavor and texture of the fruits and veggies you love. In addition, it cleans and disinfects the food by killing microorganisms on the surface to keep the food fresher, longer. Most importantly, it also helps keep the nutritious value of the food intact and prevents the breakdown of essential vitamins and minerals we love in our veggies. 

So what can you blanche? Pretty much any vegetable will benefit from the blanching process. Tender leaves will wilt while blanching, and some vegetables (broccoli, asparagus) will soften, but don’t worry, they will perk right up after thawing and cooking. 

It is a delicate process but gets easier with practice. Under-blanching stimulates enzyme activity (which defeats the purpose of blanching), while over-blanching leads to partial cooking and causes loss of flavor, color, vitamins, and minerals.

The best thing to do is to follow the instructions below, and pay close attention to the time the vegetable spends being blanched. By keeping an eye on the timer you can prevent both under-blanching or cooking the food!

Try it out using these instructions:

1. Use a blancher with a blanching basket, fry basket, or a strainer (be sure to use oven mitts if you don’t have a handle to use), or fit a wire basket into a large pot with a lid.
2. Use one gallon of water per pound of prepared vegetables.
3. Put vegetable in blanching basket and lower into vigorously boiling water. Place lid on blancher. The water should return to boiling within 1 minute, (if it doesn’t, too much vegetable is being used for the amount of boiling water).
4. Start counting blanching time as soon as the water returns to a boil.
5. Keep heat high for the time given in the directions for the vegetable you are freezing.
6. Immediately plunge basket of vegetables into a large quantity of cold water, 60ºF or below.
7. Change water frequently or use cold running water or ice water. If ice is used, about one pound of ice for each pound of vegetable is needed.
8. Cooling vegetables should take the same amount of time as blanching.
9. Drain vegetables thoroughly after cooling. Extra moisture can cause loss of quality when vegetables are frozen.

To steam blanch the vegetables, simply keep them above the boiling water instead of submerging them by using a taller pot. Check out the graphic below to see some example times for some commonly used vegetables that are easy to blanch!

Blanching your vegetables before freezing them is not always necessary, but it can help extend shelf life, flavor and texture! The most important thing to remember is just to use up as much food as you can. The less food that ends up in the trash can, the less money you’ve wasted on uneaten groceries, and the less carbon impact is created by food waste! 
There are lots of other ways to reduce waste in your kitchen. Check out How to Reduce Waste with Kids and our Top 10 Ways to Improve Food Storage. Are you curious about how much food waste you are actually producing at home? Check out We Don’t Waste’s At-Home Food Waste Audit and see what foods are commonly going to waste in your kitchen!

It’s not your imagination: your grocery bill has gone up and food prices have risen substantially. Many Americans are feeling the squeeze of the increased costs as food prices continue to rise and food budgets are stretched to their limits.

Since the initial pandemic shutdowns in 2020, food systems globally and nationwide have struggled to adapt to disrupted production and delayed distribution. In addition to all of this, the invasion of Ukraine and subsequent international sanctions on Russia mean that some of the top wheat producers are exporting a fraction of what they used to. 

Let’s take a look at some of the consequences of these events on the U.S. food system up close. 

In 2020, food-at-home (food you purchase at a grocery store) increased in cost across all food categories by 3.5% on average. The biggest increases in cost were beef and veal, pork, and poultry, increasing at 9.6%, 6.3% and 5.6% in cost, respectively. 

This trend continued in 2021 with food prices again increasing at 3.5% on average across all food categories. Not a single category of food decreased in cost, but it’s a good time to be vegetarian! The largest difference was again beef, at a 9.3% increase. The smallest change was fresh vegetables at a 1.1% increase. 

Does it get any better in 2022? Most likely not. Looking at the current prices and food trends, the ERS predicts that food prices will still continue to rise at a similar rate in every category. The conflict in Ukraine has placed international pressure on wheat production, with farm-level wheat prices now predicted to increase between 40 and 43 percent and wholesale wheat flour prices predicted to increase between 21 and 24 percent in 2022. 

What does this mean for families dealing with food insecurity? It’s not great. The average SNAP recipient in the U.S. receives $239 per month for a household of two. That means one person is getting less than $30 a week. 

Let’s say you bring home 2 pounds of ground beef, marinara sauce, two boxes of spaghetti, a packet of deli meat, a loaf of bread, two heads of lettuce, generic cereal, and a gallon of milk. Most Americans will have maxed out their SNAP budget with that much in their grocery cart, and it’s not enough. According to the USDA’s data, the average household of two individuals between the ages of 14 to 71 spent roughly $483 on groceries in March 2022. And that doesn’t include the toiletry purchases everyone makes each trip. 

Inflation is expected to continue for a number of reasons. Ukraine and Russia produce about 30% of the world’s wheat, wheat flower, and sunflower oil, and with exports limited, the costs for these bulk items are soaring. Many products containing these ingredients are experiencing an uptick in price, and this also leads to a cost increase for animal products, as the feed these animals consume goes up in cost. To top it all off, increasing fuel prices make food transportation more costly, and the consumer ends up seeing this cost reflected in the cost of goods as well. 

That was a lot. What do we do now, knowing that grocery prices will likely just continue to increase? Aside from the common answer of sharpening your couponing skills, it’s important to use what you have! We have a list of tips for keeping food fresh and delicious on our Education page. We have blogs on reducing waste with children at home, and ways you can improve your food storage to reduce waste in your fridge and pantry.

Keep an eye out for your neighbor as well! Food insecurity can affect anyone, at any time. If you know someone experiencing food insecurity, or you yourself are struggling, call the Colorado hotline for hunger, at 855-855-4626. It’s a toll-free number with 150+ language options and can provide you with food resources and more necessary items! Our Mobile Food Markets are also up and running nearly every week, and are a great way to supplement your grocery trips. 

If you’d like to show your support for your neighbors through We Don’t Waste, check out our Get Involved page to find more ways you can help!

For one of our recipient agencies, Giving Grocery (formerly known as South High School Food Pantry), food distribution is about more than feeding students; it’s about taking care of the students’ communities as well. We Don’t Waste has been distributing food to the organization since 2018, and is proud to have been a part of their growing impact over the years.

The pantry started in 2014 when Greg Thielen and Jaclyn Yelich’s daughter was enrolled in Denver South High School. Their daughter has since graduated college, but the pantry is still going strong with the duo at the lead. 

Students enrolled in the school have the opportunity to shop every Thursday, and the pantry typically serves around 100 families each week. The offerings include fresh produce, proteins, milk, eggs, snacks, culturally relevant items, and even personal care items requested by the students.

For the Giving Grocery, the demand for culturally relevant food offerings is more important than for most, as Denver South High School is home to an extremely diverse community of students. The school has historically been welcoming to immigrants and has had students enrolled from Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Venezuela, Honduras, and more. Over 50 countries are represented in enrollment every year!

Part of We Don’t Waste’s commitment to serving the Giving Grocery is through the variety of food we deliver to them to meet their community’s needs. Food itself is essential for survival, but food that tastes like home is an even greater comfort. 

When the pandemic hit, Giving Grocery was forced to adapt to changing circumstances and even greater needs. 

“For many of our families, the first several months of the pandemic were incredibly difficult,”  Greg says. “Some family members became seriously ill, some lost jobs, some had their work hours reduced dramatically, and children were at home instead of school. We worked hard to support our families during the first year of the pandemic by delivering food directly to their homes.” 

With the help of dedicated volunteers, the pantry was delivering food to over 30 Denver South High School families every week! They remained open during the summer months as well, knowing that summer, in particular, can be a difficult time for food-insecure families who depend on free or reduced school meals. 

Despite the country opening back up and parents and children headed back to their respective offices and schools, food insecurity continues to trouble many families. “The cost of housing, gasoline, electricity, heat, and food force many families to make difficult choices. Do they buy gas to get to work or do they buy food for their family?” Greg says.

Denver South High School is fortunate to have the Giving Grocery serving South’s students and their families’ needs, and We Don’t Waste is proud to have them as stewards of our recovered food. We know that each week, nothing is going to waste, and the people who need it the most are receiving the food and the support they need to thrive. 

“Working together, we have made a difference for our kids and their families,” Greg says. 

If you would like to support Giving Grocery, check out their website to make a donation and find volunteer opportunities!

Sustainability might be too big of a word to teach a pre-school child, but the idea can be taught! 

As an adult it can be easy to make small changes to your habits to reduce food waste, but what about when you have kids? Saving food is not something that naturally comes to mind for a child, and introducing new foods into their diet can be a long and wasteful process. 

The following tips should help your home save time, energy, and food!

For the youngest: 

1. Feed them your food

Spare yourself the job of short-order cook by feeding your child the same food you eat, but puréed for the little ones. Serve yourself a smaller portion, knowing you’ll likely finish what they don’t. If you start when they’re young, this tip will help you go much further with the following steps. 

2. Serve tiny portions

We want our kids to try new foods, but studies show many children have to try a food up to 15 times before accepting it! Start with small portions and minimize untouched food. You can always offer seconds when they’re interested.

3. Re-introduce the food

Speaking of those barely touched portions — save them! Either serve leftovers again in the next couple of days, or incorporate them into something else. Put leftover milk in your morning coffee and leftover veggies in a stir fry. Purees can be added to pasta sauce or soup.

4. Limit snacking

Snacking on the same foods every day and going into a meal with a full stomach makes it more difficult for a child to have an interest in trying new foods. Snack time can also be used for re-introduction to new foods, although this might require some creativity if it isn’t well-disguised!

FOR NEW EATERS:

1. Forget 5 seconds

Place a clean mat below your small child’s high chair before serving food. That way, food that falls (or gets jettisoned) off the tray is still safe to eat and can be placed back on their plates.

2. Serve finger foods

If utensils are causing a lot of food spills, consider switching to finger foods more often. Little nuggets don’t spill, can be easily recovered off the mat below, and allow your child to learn to feed themself independently.

3. Don’t engage in the food fight

Kids throw food on the floor to test their boundaries, but it doesn’t do anybody good to clean an entire meal off the ground. Stay nearby as they’re learning to eat and intervene before the food starts flying. Give them a specific place on their plate or tray to put food instead. They’ll eventually get it, and you’ll have less cleaning to do as a result.

As They Get Older:

1. Inspect the lunch boxes

Pack reusable containers with lunch, and have your kids bring home leftover food and drinks. Asking why some food went uneaten will help you offer the right foods in the right amounts next time. Sometimes small changes like cutting foods into smaller pieces can make lunch more appealing.

2. Use the IKEA effect

People tend to like things they helped make, and children are no different. Involve your kids in cooking and give them choices when possible. Allow them to serve themselves in the portions they want, within reason.

3. Garden and visit a farm

Kids who are involved in growing fruits and vegetables are more likely to eat them. Give your whole family an appreciation and respect for the resources required to bring food to the table by participating in the local food systems that bring the food into the pantry. 

While many of these tips can help you reduce food waste in your home, it is equally as important to let your child know why it is important that food is eaten and doesn’t end up in the trash. The World Wildlife Fund has several extensive toolkits for kids ranging from K-12 with educational activities and ways to get your child involved as a food waste warrior! You can also print out our We Don’t Waste coloring page to get your child engaged in the conversation of food waste.

Are you an educator? We Don’t Waste has an engaging education program for schools that can include a food waste audit performed during the children’s lunch period! It’s free, flexible, and content can be tailored to your class’s level and interests. 

40% of all food that is produced in the United States goes uneaten, and most of that is the result of households. It’s hard to believe, but if you pay attention to how much food you throw out in a week it might start to make a little more sense. In fact, a family of four could save on average $1,800 a year on wasted food alone. The waste isn’t intentional, but we don’t always have the best strategy or the knowledge to make the situation any better. 

Check out these tips for ways to save food you may not have known about. Save the groceries, and save your money!

1. Date Your Foods

When opening a can of sauce, a carton of eggs, or just putting away leftovers, write on the container the date in which they were first opened or stored. This will prevent the “Oh no, how old is this?” panic when you see an item you forgot about in the fridge. It will also help with food organization for tip #2.

2. Store the oldest foods in front

If you’ve started to write dates on your foods or you have just gone to the grocery store, place the already opened or older food items in the front of the fridge. Oftentimes many Americans will forget about what they have in the back of their fridge and it will rot. Simply by seeing what we have, we can incorporate the foods into a meal or a snack and prioritize eating them before they goes bad.

3. Freeze it while its ripe

You’ve labeled your foods and you know you have about a day left before your asparagus is totally wilted the way that it’s looking. Put it in the freezer! If you aren’t ready to cook with it yet it is better to save it for later than throw it away and waste the money. A common misconception is that freezing produce or protein causes it to lose its vitamin and mineral content, but worry not, frozen foods retain most or all of their nutrients until you decide to cook with them! You have nothing to lose but space in the freezer!

4. Know your labels

Many Americans will throw out food prematurely because they misread the labels on the food. 

“Sell-By” refers to the peak rotation of freshness for foods on shelves in grocery stores. It has nothing to do with food safety.

“Best-By” refers to the date of the peak taste of food, but does not refer to the expiration.

“Use-By” refers to the ideal freshness of the food, but does not refer to the expiration either.

The moral of the story is to always use your senses to tell if a food has gone bad. Look at it, smell it, and taste just a little. If all else fails, use google to know what signs to look for in a product that has gone bad.

5. Store the right foods apart

Some foods will produce ethylene gas as they ripen. It’s a natural process that may cause other foods around it sensitive to ethylene to ripen even faster! If the foods stored together on your counter seem to be going bad too quickly, this may be the cause. Store these foods as far apart as you can to maximize the time they stay fresh!

6. Treat herbs like flowers

By storing cooking herbs upright in a cup of water you can extend the time that they stay fresh. After getting back from the grocery, cut the end of the stem, cover the tops of them with foil or wrap if needed, and they will be fresh until you need to use them. (Asparagus, carrots, and celery also likes to be kept upright in water)

7. Wash produce as you go

Instead of soaking the entire container of blueberries when you get home, wash only the amount you intend on immediately eating. By washing them and putting the container back with the additional moisture you are creating conditions for mold to grow faster and for your leafy greens to wilt. If you notice there is already moisture buildup in these containers, place a paper towel in the bottom of the containers in order to absorb it and replace it when you notice it getting soggy. 

8. Not everything needs refrigerated

Avocados, citrus, bananas, nectarines, pears, peaches, onions, tomatoes, and potatoes can all be stored at room temperature or in a cool pantry. Even apples that aren’t quite ripe yet need to be kept at room temperature before being refrigerated. Just remember the tip about ethylene producers and keep those items distanced. Covering the stem of the bananas can also reduce the amount of ethylene they spread to nearby produce. 

9. Wrap opened cheese

After opening it is best to cover cheese in wax or beeswax paper in order to prevent molding. These papers also prevent any flavors from being transferred to the cheese, where plastic wrap can leach odd flavors into the cheese. 

10. Use reusable containers

Foods don’t always come in the best packaging for storage. Lettuce can come with too much moisture, grain and bread bags aren’t air tight, and some foods can be too dry. Consider moving foods, especially ripe ones, to reusable containers in order to preserve freshness longer. Bonus points if you bring produce bags to the grocery instead of using plastic! (Just make sure to wash them every once in a while to prevent bacteria growth.)

Start implementing some of these tips in your household and watch your grocery bill fall and your fridge stay stocked! If you are looking for more ways to reduce your food waste at home check out our blog on the topic!

We typically discuss food waste, a stage where food exits our food systems, but it is equally as important to understand where it all begins, the soil! At the beginning of food production, soil and farming practices set the stage for the sustainability of our food system. 

One of the ways farmers and producers are currently working to reduce the damage of industrial farming is through regenerative farming. The Regenerative Agriculture Foundation defines it as “any practice, process, or management approach that enhances the functioning of the systems on which it relies.” The methods that make up regenerative farming are deservedly now at the forefront of discussion in regards to climate change.

It may sound, at first, like a new buzzword, but the health of soil is at the foundation of agriculture itself. Soil may not look like much, but it is very much a living, interactive part of our environment. Soil provides key nutrients required for plant growth such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium as well as many others. The soil itself is composed of minerals, organic matter, living organisms, gas, and water⏤and all of it is affected by what happens in, on, and around it.

Much of regenerative farming involves the practice of making sure that soil is kept in tip-top shape in terms of the mineral, water, carbon, and nutrient content. In return, the farmland works symbiotically with the rest of the ecological landscape and stays arable decades longer. Healthy soil acts as a highly-effective carbon-sink, a natural pest repellent, and if treated right can produce healthier foods at a lower environmental cost as well. 

Industrial-level farming depends on intensive water and growing practices which results in depleted nutrients in the ground and eventually the destruction of the soil itself. Soil is often overtilled, underfed, and overworked until it loses all biodiversity and is effectively dead. When the soil is misused in this way it can become extremely difficult to grow crops and leads to further desertification of previously arable land. 

Nearly all large-scale farming operations in the US use methods that follow down that path, but there are ways to reverse the damage. 

Smarter crop rotation, using organic pest solutions, regenerative grazing, and more natural solutions can be incorporated in various degrees in order to preserve current farmland or regenerate current arid lands. Much of this has yet to be explored on the same scale as industrial farming as the organic and non-industrial farming sector makes up less than 1% of all farmland in the US.

Fortunately, many of these methods are proven tried and true where they are incorporated. 

Crop rotation is important for soil as some crops are extremely greedy in terms of the nutrients they absorb from the soil, whereas other crops act to replenish the soil with nutrients they return to their roots. It’s the give and take that allows soil to recover as opposed to intensive plants using up the nutrients in the same soil four seasons a year. 

Many regenerative farms also choose to allow grazers onto the fields while they lay fallow after the primary plant is out of season. The animals that graze fertilize the soil naturally and cause less destruction to topsoil as opposed to continuous tilling. 

Natural pest solutions are less harsh on the soil and have a much lower environmental cost to produce. Glyphosate, the primary ingredient in non-organic pesticides, actively attacks the amino acids in plants and only gets to store shelves after an immense amount of fossil fuels are used in production.

What do consumers want?

Consumers have clearly indicated through shopping habits that many prioritize natural solutions with the wave of organic isles that can be found in many grocery stores. In 2019, Nielsen found 73 percent of global consumers said in order to reduce their environmental footprint they would be willing to change their habits. 

With this in mind it is clear that in order to have a more sustainable food system it is as important to consider the beginning as it is the end of food production.

We don’t all have access to organic food or local farms, but we can all make sure that we smartly use the food we buy!

There is so much time, energy, and natural resources that goes into the production of our food today that it makes utilizing what we’ve grown even more important. Your resourcefulness can help keep climate change in check.

If you feel as strongly as we do about the topic then check out our blog about ways to reduce food waste at home. 

What’s The Real Difference Between “Sell By”, “Best By”, and “Use By”?

We’ve all reached into the back of our fridge, pulled out a jar of something we forgot we bought a month ago, looked at the use-by date, and promptly chucked it in the trash. But how much faith should we put in the dates printed on our groceries?

Fun fact: food dating is not required by federal law. This means there aren’t standardized definitions of the phrases “sell by”, “best by”, and “use by”. These labels are voluntarily printed on products in our grocery stores.

Generally speaking:

• Best By refers to the length of time that a product will be the highest quality.
• Sell By tells retailers how long they should leave the product on the shelf for sale.
• Use By is the last date that manufacturers recommend you consume the product.

NONE of these dates are actually safety dates (unless they’re on infant formula, which is the only time they are legally required). What’s worse, the USDA estimates that a large percentage of food waste results from sellers and consumers who discard food only because the date on the package has passed.

What can you do?

Take the dates on food packaging as guidelines, not deadlines, and remember that you’re the best judge of whether something is okay to eat. If the food has been stored properly and doesn’t show signs of having gone bad, it should be fine to eat!

Further reading

• USDA Food Product Dating FAQ
• EatByDate food-specific safety information