Day 11
“40% of all food in America is wasted…Food is the number one thing in America’s landfills.”
A long time ago, I created a 30-Day Meal Plan to help me figure out my new plant-rich lifestyle. It helped me easily solve the age-old question “What’s for dinner?” at a time when I was still learning how to eat in new ways.
These days, I am more likely to shop for the rainbow, which is also helpful in other regards. But if you find you are wasting food on a regular basis, a 30-day meal plan can help you save not just food but money. Or, to put it another way, as savethefood.com says, “A four-person family could lose at least $1500 a year on wasted food. Saving that would basically be a raise.”
As for the climate issue, we have every reason to find ways to save the precious food that we put in our carts. Curbing food waste is the third most powerful solution on the list of the top 80 game changers!
Writing Prompt
Go to your fridge or cabinet and find one food item that you seem to have saved too long. (Note, you may not have saved it too long. There are fabulous things you can do with supposedly spoiled food.) But, for the moment, assume all is lost for this food item. Why will it go to waste? Why did you buy it in the first place? Write an ode to the food item. It can be serious or humorous.
Alternately, write a poem about shopping with a plan. Or, the plans you’ve made for a particular food.
Found Barley
It’s best to shop with a plan,
they say.
So now I am wondering
what plans I made
for the twelve packs of pearled barley
I found in the basement,
where they’d been waiting
’til this day.
