The best leftovers are the ones that get eaten. When you make a habit of eating your leftover food, you save money, spend less time in the kitchen and help prevent food waste. Find tips on how you can use up your leftovers and other ways to reduce your food waste.
The average Canadian household wastes more than $1,300 worth of edible food every year, most of which is avoidable.
Food waste reduction is one of the waste reduction programs and initiatives supporting the City’s Long-term Waste Management Strategy. The City is partnering with FoodMesh, other government organizations and major retailers on the Love Food Hate Waste Canada campaign.
Why Food Waste is a Problem
According to the National Zero Waste Council’s research on household food waste in Canada, almost 2.3 million tonnes of edible food is wasted each year, costing Canadians more than $20 billion.
Food waste also has substantial environmental impacts. Wasted food squanders the resources used to grow, produce and distribute that food to consumers and produces greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Canada’s 2.3 million tonnes of avoidable household food waste are equivalent to 6.9 million tonnes of CO2 and more than two million cars on the road.
Food and other organic material incorrectly put in garbage bins ends up in landfill where it decomposes and produces greenhouse gases like methane. Toronto’s Green Bin program was designed for unavoidable food waste (such as scraps, peels and cores). Putting avoidable food waste, such as leftovers or spoiled food, in the Green Bin creates the need for additional resources and management and increases costs.
Planning for leftovers, storing them properly and finding new ways to use them can help you save time, money and food. Try these tips:
Plan for leftovers. Make extra portions for dinner and use them for lunches or other meals later in the week.
Give leftovers a new life. Turn leftover ingredients into new dishes. For example, use cooked vegetables in soups or stir-fries, or use leftover rice in fried rice or casseroles.
Store leftovers safely. Refrigerate leftovers promptly, label the date and eat them within two to three days.
Freeze leftovers for later. If you aren’t planning to eat your leftovers within the next few days, freeze them for a future meal.
Visit Love Food Hate Waste’s Love Your Leftovers web page for more tips on food storage, meal planning and recipes.
How to Reduce Your Food Waste
Small changes to your routine can make a big difference to reduce food waste.
Plan ahead
Spend some time on the weekend planning meals for the following week.
Check your fridge, freezer and cupboards before shopping. See what needs to be used up and then think of a meal to make with those items.
To preserve freshness and nutrition, use perishables like seafood and meat earlier in the week and save staples (pasta, dairy, eggs) for later in the week.
Choose what you’ll use
Once you’ve planned your meals for the week, determine how many fresh fruits and vegetables you need.
Buy fruits and vegetables loose whenever possible.
Buy choosing what is right for you – the size, quantity, shape and ripeness of the fruit or vegetable, you can save money by making the food you have go further.
Buy fresh vegetables in smaller amounts and use frozen vegetables to fill in the gaps.
Keep it fresh
Keep food fresh longer by storing it in the correct place and setting the temperature in your fridge to 4°C or lower.
Refrigerate or freeze your meat, poultry, and shellfish as soon as you get home from the grocery store and follow the storage instructions on the packaging.
Set one produce drawer to high humidity to store vegetables that wilt, like leafy greens, and another produce drawer to low humidity for fruits and some vegetables that produce ethylene, like apples and peppers.
Freeze items to make them last longer. Bread can last up to three months in the freezer, chicken can last up to nine months and most vegetables can be frozen for eight months to a year.
Know the difference
Best before dates are about how long an unopened product will keep its freshness, taste and nutritional value.
Expiration dates are about food safety. Do not eat food past the expiration date.
Group items together in your fridge that are closer to their best before date, so you remember to use them first when they are at their peak quality.
Look at the quality of the food packaging before eating.
Avoid food where the packaging is bulging, torn, ripped, infested, has water damage and food that smells bad, contains mould or shows signs of discolouration.
