Americans drinks close to 42 gallons of water per person each year from single use plastic bottles. The problem is that only 30% of these bottles are recycled and it takes three times the amount of water to make a plastic bottle than the water they hold. According to the Ocean Conservancy, plastic beverage bottles … Read More
{ 0 comments }
Pesticide residue on fruits and vegetables is a big, scary topic filled with emotional reasons why you should or should not buy certain foods. Every year the Environmental Working Group (EWG) publishes the Dirty Dozen, 12 fruits and vegetables they claim have the highest pesticide levels. The 2018 list includes most of the commonly eaten … Read More
{ 0 comments }
Americans discard over 52 million tons of food each year—that’s 400 pounds for each person. Though farms, restaurants, grocery stores, and institutional food services all have some food waste, households contribute the most, over 43% of all the food wasted is done at home. We need to be more responsible with this precious commodity and … Read More
{ 0 comments }
Three quarters of all food waste happens at home. Some is related to how we store foods once we bring them into our kitchen. Milk should be stored on the back of the shelf in the coldest part of the refrigerator. The door shelves are the warmest part of the fridge. Eggs should be left … Read More
{ 0 comments }
In an effort to reduce food waste and to provide a useful ingredient for vegetarian and vegan recipes aquafaba was born. The word is derived from Latin and literally means water and bean. Aquafaba is exactly that, the liquid you normally drain off from canned beans. One 15-ounce can of beans will contain about a … Read More
{ 0 comments }
From an ecological and water conservation perspective, boiling a large pot of water and then dumping most of the water down the drain is pretty wasteful. Since most Americans eat close to 25 pounds of pasta each year, reducing the water or shortening the cooking time could be a huge conservation step. Harold McGee, who … Read More
{ 0 comments }
Many buy organic foods to avoid pesticides but contrary to what most people believe, over 100 different pesticides can be used by organic farmers. All farmers, whether they are organic or conventional, employ strategies to protect their crops. The difference is the type of pesticides used. Organic farmers tend to use natural substances such as … Read More
{ 0 comments }
Reducing food waste and using foods efficiently to allow global resources to feed our ever-growing world population is currently getting a lot of attention. Researchers from the University of Edinburg attempted to quantify how food was lost in the global food system. They discovered that overeating, consuming more food than is necessary for nutritional needs, … Read More
{ 0 comments }
Free-from should mean that a food contains no amount of, or only trivial or inconsequential amounts of an ingredient. Calorie free means fewer than 5 calories per serving. Sugar free, fat free and trans fat free means less than 0.5 grams per serving. Cholesterol free means less than 2 milligrams per serving. Sodium free means … Read More
{ 0 comments }
We are throwing out $162 billion worth of perfectly good food each year. This not only wastes food, but it wastes money, water, and the natural resources needed to grow the food that is never eaten. 28% of the world’s farmland, an area larger than Canada, is used to grow food that is never eaten … Read More
{ 0 comments }
