On Thanksgiving, Save Some Food for Other Gobblers

In the United States, where the Food Network reaches more than 85 million homes, according to Nielsen Media Research, it’s a safe bet that most viewers have the ingredients for a meal—or the ability to buy them. That’s not true everywhere. In fact, the United Nations World Food Program estimates that more than one billion people will go hungry today, tomorrow, and on Thanksgiving—a day when most Americans feast.

 The holiday season is a time for gifts, decorations, and gargantuan amounts of food. As a result, it's also a time of spectacular amounts of waste. In the United States, alone, celebrants generate an extra 5 million tons of household waste each year between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day—including three times as much food waste as at other times of the year.

"Family, community, love, and gratitude are all unlimited resources," said President Robert Engelman of Washington, D.C.-based Worldwatch Institute, an independent research organization dedicated to creating an environmentally sustainable society that meets human needs, adding, "Unfortunately, food and the energy, water, and other natural resources that go into producing food are not. The logical strategy is to let ourselves go in enjoying the unlimited conviviality and communion of the holidays, but to avoid wasting the limited resources. Even simple shifts toward sustainability----and reducing food waste is an easy one----can have major impacts when multiplied by millions of people." 

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, roughly one-third of all food produced for human consumption----approximately 1.3 billion tons----is lost or wasted each year. Consumers in developed countries such as the United States are responsible for 222 million tons of this waste, or nearly the same quantity of food as is produced in all of sub-Saharan Africa.

The food wasted in the United States each year is enough to satisfy the hunger of the approximately 1 billion malnourished people worldwide, according to Tristram Stuart, a food waste expert and contributing author to State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet, the annual flagship publication of The Worldwatch Institute.

"With nearly a billion people going hungry in the world, including 17.2 million households within the United States, reducing the amount of food being wasted is incredibly important," says Danielle Nierenberg, director of Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet, a project that aims to inform global efforts to eradicate hunger, as well as to raise the profile of such efforts. "We need to start focusing on diverting food from going into our trashcans and landfills and instead getting it into the hands of those who need it most."

The Nourishing the Planet team recently traveled to 25 countries across sub-Saharan Africa, and soon will be traveling to Latin America, shining a spotlight on communities that serve as models for a more sustainable future. The project is unearthing innovations in agriculture that can help alleviate hunger and poverty while also protecting the environment. These innovations are elaborated in State of the World 2011.

To provide just one of many examples, in Kibera, Nairobi, the largest slum in Kenya, more than 1,000 women farmers are growing “vertical” gardens in sacks full of dirt poked with holes, in order to feed their families and communities. These sacks have the potential to feed thousands of city dwellers while also providing a sustainable and easy-to-maintain source of income for urban farmers. With more than 60 percent of Africa’s population projected to live in urban areas by 2050, such methods may be crucial to creating future food security. Currently, some 33 percent of Africans live in cities, and 14 million more migrate to urban areas each year. Worldwide, some 800 million people engage in urban agriculture—producing 15–20 percent of all food eaten on the planet.

With the holidays now upon us, the Worldwatch Institute offers 10 simple steps we all can take to help make this season less wasteful and more plentiful for everyone:

Before the meal: Plan your menu and exactly how much food you'll need.

1.     Be realistic. The fear of not providing enough to eat often causes hosts to cook too much. The Love Food Hate Waste organization, based in Scotland, provides a handy "perfect portions" planner to calculate meal sizes for parties as well as everyday servings.

2.     Plan ahead. Create a shopping list before heading to the farmers' market or grocery store. Sticking to this list will reduce the risk of impulse buys or buying unnecessary quantities— particularly since stores typically use holiday sales to entice buyers into spending more.

During the meal: Control the amount on your plate to reduce the amount in the garbage.

3. Go small.  The season of indulgence often promotes plates piled high with more food than can be eaten. Simple tricks of using smaller serving utensils or plates can encourage smaller portions, reducing the amount left on plates. Guests can always take second (or third!) servings if they still are hungry, and it is much easier (and more hygienic) to use leftovers from serving platters for future meals.

4. Encourage self-serve. Allow guests to serve themselves—choosing what, and how much, they would like to eat. This helps to make meals feel more familiar and also reduces the amount of unwanted food left on guests' plates.

After the meal: Make the most out of leftovers.

5. Store leftovers safely.  Properly storing leftovers will preserve them safely for future meals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends that hot foods be left out for no more than two hours. Store leftovers in smaller, individually sized containers, making them more convenient to grab for a quick meal rather than being passed over and eventually wasted.

6. Compost food scraps.  Instead of throwing out the vegetable peels, eggshells, and other food scraps from your meal, consider composting them. In 2010, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to pass legislation encouraging city-wide composting, and similar broader-scale food composting approaches have been adopted in many municipalities.

7. Create new meals.  If composting is not an option for you, check out Love Food Hate Waste's creative recipes to see if your food scraps can be used for new meals. Vegetable scraps and turkey carcasses can be easily boiled down for stock and soups, and bread crusts and ends can be used to make tasty homemade croutons.

8. Donate the excess. Food banks and shelters gladly welcome donations of canned and dried foods, especially during the holiday season and colder months. The charity group Feeding America partners with more than 200 local food banks nationwide, supplying food to more than 37 million people each year. To find a food bank near you, visit the organization's Food Bank Locator.

9. Support food-recovery programs. In some cases, food-recovery systems will come to you to collect your excess. In New York City, City Harvest, the world's first food-rescue organization, collects approximately 28 million pounds of food each year that would otherwise go to waste, providing groceries and meals for over 300,000 people.

Throughout the holiday season: Consider what you're giving.

10. Give gifts with thought. When giving food as a gift, avoid highly perishable items and make an effort to select foods that you know the recipient will enjoy, rather than waste. The Rainforest Alliance, an international nonprofit, works with farmers and producers in tropical areas to ensure they are practicing environmentally sustainable and socially just methods. The group's certified chocolates, coffees, and teas are great gifts that have with long shelf-lives, and buying them helps support businesses and individuals across the world.

As we sit down this week to give thanks, the simple changes we make, such as using food responsibly and donating excess to the hungry, can help make the holiday season more plentiful and hunger-free for all.