Happy New Year! (I can still say that, right? This isn’t Larry David’s blog so I’m going with it.) Since we still have one more day left in January, I’ve decided it’s not too late to share my new year’s resolution supporting the blog’s Eat Well, Heal the Planet annual goals. Drumroll, please…

That’s right, Waste Less Food is back! I am repeating my 2016 resolution because it’s an incredibly important and impactful one, and I personally could do with recommitting to this goal. If you are new to the blog, each year I choose a resolution where our family’s actions in the kitchen impact the environment in a positive way. For 2020 it is all about wasting less food!

First and foremost, go check out the post I wrote in 2016 the first time I made this my new year’s resolution. There is a ton of great information in that article, including more on the negative impact food waste has on the environment.

Today I want to build on that original post, providing tips for attacking food waste effectively.

#1: SHOP SMART

Being smart about the food you buy is definitely Step 1 in wasting less food.

Yes, that is Cate is 2009. She is now 15. Unreal.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Create a grocery list before you hit the store. This will help tremendously, both with food waste and budgeting.
• Buy ugly produce. It tastes the same, I promise. I often will pick up a piece of produce and go to put it back if it’s not perfect, then force myself to put it in the cart. The ugly fruit wants to be loved, too!
• Buy food from companies like Imperfect Foods. Imperfect Foods sources food that won’t be sold in stores, whether because it is surplus or imperfect (i.e. ugly). I’ve been ordering from Imperfect Foods for quite some time now and love the service. Click here to sign up! (Note: this is my referral link, which means we both get $10 with your first order.)

#2: FOOD LABEL DATES ARE NOT GOSPEL

Ignore dates on packaging. Seriously. The only food that the FDA requires a use-by date for is infant formula – no other food has date labeling requirements. The “use by” and “best by” dates printed on food packaging are a guide for enjoying food at peak quality and is not related to food safety. A “sell by” date tells stores how long to display products and, again, is not related to safety.  

When it comes to determining if a food is safe to eat, use logic, not the date on the package. Color, smell and texture will tell you what you need to know. And always make sure you store food properly to maximize safety and freshness. The USDA has a fantastic article that explains the dating systems used, as well as great tips for knowing if food has spoiled or not: click here to read it! 

#3: COOK AT HOME AND USE LEFTOVERS

Cooking at home has huge positive impacts when it comes to food waste and trash. When our family has had busy weeks where we’ve eaten takeout more, our trash bin fills up significantly more quickly, both with from food containers and random bits of food. There are many reasons why cooking at home is a great choice (Michael Pollan lists a few of them in this interview with the Boston Globe), and reducing food waste is one of my favorites! 

Leftovers are also huge when it comes to food waste. I used to be terrible about using up leftovers, but now (sometimes to my family’s chagrin) I am a champ getting those leftovers eaten! Whether it’s for my own lunch or dinner for the whole family, leftovers are super handy. 

#4: COMPOST!

The first time I made food waste a new year’s resolution, I also committed to composting. Composting is great because if you do end up with some food waste, you are putting it to good use! Rather than sending food waste to the landfill where it will create more greenhouse gases, composting food scraps at home skips the whole extra greenhouse gas problem and you end up with beautiful compost for your yard or garden. You can even compost in a small house or apartment using raised, rotating bins, as they don’t attract critters or cause a stink.  

I searched my blog and realized that I never followed up with you all about our family’s composting experience. I did in fact start composting in 2016 and we still do it! I decided to compost using raised, rotating bins. I highly recommend them! If you decide to go the rotating bin route, make sure the bin has two chambers, one for “cooking” and one for adding materials while the other side cooks.

Click here for a great Composting 101 article from Gardener’s Supply Company. Related, I love Gardener’s Supply Company’s dual-chamber rotating compost bin, which you can buy here. 

#5: MEAL PLANNING IS THE BEST!

Meal planning to the rescue once again! I know I’m biased, what with a blog called “This Week for Dinner” and all, but seriously, people, meal planning is huge when it comes to wasting less food. If your grocery list is based on your meal plan, you are automatically ahead of the game. Buying food that you have a plan for is huge in the fight against waste. If you aren’t meal planning already, hop to it! It’s the best!

Are you ready to waste less food? So am I! Happy 2020!

This post is sponsored by the American Heart Association Healthy For Good movement. The views, opinions and positions expressed within this post belong to Jane Maynard of This Week for Dinner and do not necessarily represent those of The American Heart Association unless explicitly stated.

My new year’s resolution for 2017 was to cook more. I know it might seem strange to have a food blogger make this her resolution, but the fact of the matter was I had let cooking take the back burner (pun intended!). So, as 2017 kicked off, I decided to really focus on cooking again. And that focus has worked and made me a much happier person as a result.

2016 was a rough year for several reasons that I won’t get into, but it really is no surprise that making dinner wasn’t a top priority for a good portion of the year. We were eating out a ton, which always makes me uneasy because I know we’re consuming way more calories, fat and sodium than we should be eating. There were a lot of pancake and cereal nights, too. I’ve made peace with how dinner went down in 2016 and have told myself “everything in its season.” But I am also feeling so good about the fact that I’ve been in the kitchen more this year, even during times that get especially busy.

One of the keys to the success of this year’s resolution has been shopping at our local farmer’s market each week. There is a farmer’s market every Wednesday (all year!) in my town and after 3 1/2 years into living here I had never visited. I KNOW. It’s just so weird because things like farmer’s markets and CSAs make me so happy! So, as part of the resolution to cook more, I started going to the market each week. We also discovered a small, organic farm smack dab in the middle of a nearby neighborhood that is perhaps the happiest place in San Diego, with devoted shoppers and restaurateurs carefully selecting their produce each week.

I cannot tell you how AWESOME this change in my life has been. First off, it’s fun telling my friends that I am going “to the market.” They think like I sound like a European grandmother and never quite know what I’m talking about.

Beyond sounding like a European grandmother, going to the market each week has kept me much more in touch with what food is in season at any given time and our meals have reflected that natural seasonality more and more. And I love buying local – most of the farmers represented are located in my town or neighboring communities. I love knowing that our family is having a positive environmental impact through buying so much more of our food close to home.

There’s been another unexpected benefit of going to the farmer’s market each week: my cooking has gotten more fun and creative. As you know, I’m totally about planning a weekly menu. My shopping list is always built around that plan and I rarely stray from the list when I am at the store. Going to the farmer’s market has gotten me to have a little more fun with our meals and add a bit of flexibility to the planning. Yes, I go into the market with a list, but I also let the fruits and vegetables that happen to be there that week drive what we eat. It’s made cooking fun and creative. (If you’re looking for a little creative inspiration before your next shopping run, consider shopping and serving the rainbow!)

And, of course, the biggest benefit has been that we are eating way more homemade food, which is just plain healthier than takeout and most restaurant foods. I have been meaning to write this post about my new farmer’s market habit and the American Heart Association finally gave me the kick I needed to get it done. I am so happy to share my experience as part of their Healthy For Good campaign (did you know it’s National Fruit + Vegetable Month?), which encourages us all to Eat Smart, Add Color, Move More and Be Well.

Remember that rough year I had in 2016? It kind of got me down. I felt uninspired and the stress of everything definitely caused me to rely too heavily on eating out. This post from the AHA about unhealthy eating as related to stress really spoke to me, especially numbers 2 and 6! I am telling you that this new focus I have had on nourishing myself and my family through food has been transformative. Yes, I still feel stress. Yes, I am still getting over some of that 2016 nonsense. But taking the time to focus on food has been amazingly uplifting. Plus, getting outside and walking for my grocery shopping sure has made life happier, too!

I’m sure you’re wondering if I get all of my food at the farmer’s market…and the answer is no! First I hit the farmer’s market then pop over to my local grocery store to get other staples that weren’t at the market. I’ve never really loved food shopping, but now I look forward to it each week!

So, that’s the update on this year’s resolution to cook more. The farmer’s market is my new happy place and I love the effect it’s had on our eating and on my life in general. And it’s totally helping me keep my new year’s resolution.

Happy cooking!

It’s been about 6 months since I’ve given an update on my 2015 New Year’s resolution, so I thought it was time to check in! For those of you who don’t know, each year I choose a New Year’s resolution that is related to food or the kitchen that impacts the environment in a positive way. This year my goal was to stop using paper towels. So, how are we doing? I have had several friends and family members ask with a skeptical voice if we are really doing it and if it’s actually going well.

It’s going great! Honestly, it hasn’t been hard at all. The big stack of Ikea towels I bought have worked wonderfully, and my system of having the bin of towels accessible in the kitchen and then hooks close by (for hanging after use) works like a charm! (Click here to read more of the details.) Everyone in the family is participating and following the plan. The key to success has been accessibility. The towels are at everyone’s level and in the center of things. The hooks are nearby for the dirty towels. I don’t have any extra laundry, the towels just go in with everything else. I am really happy with how well it has worked out!

As for cleaning, I have mostly moved away from paper towels. I still use them to clean the toilet, along with bleach cleaner. I haven’t been able to switch over to a towel for that task, despite my aunt telling me it will be fine. She has a designated towel for the toilets, with a T in permanent marker in the corner and she says it works great with her environmentally-friendly soap. One day maybe I’ll take the plunge. (Not into the toilet, just into cleaning it differently.) Toilets aside, I no longer use paper towels for any of our cleaning. I purchased high quality microfiber towels and, not only am I not using paper towels, I use less soap. And it’s faster and easier! (I’ll share the towels I bought in a separate post down the road.)

There is one more thing that I still use paper towels for – draining bacon. I should be able to come up with another way to do this, but I really like patting the bacon dry with a paper towel. If anyone has suggestions for this, let me know!

So, have we completely given up paper towels? Not quite, but almost. We hardly ever use them, just for toilets and bacon. And my life is not any harder. In fact, cleaning is easier. I am so glad I finally pulled the trigger to make this goal a reality in our home!

If you’ve been trying to cut back on paper towels, let us know how it’s going and please share any tips that have been helpful with your implementation!

Remember my 2015 New Year’s Resolution to give up paper towels? The process is underway and so far so good! We are down to just 2 more rolls, which I will keep in the garage for “emergencies.” Besides that we are done with paper towels! Today I wanted to share some tips for how to stop using paper towels in the kitchen that have helped to make our family successful at this goal. It was surprisingly simple and easy!(Side note: I will share tips for giving up paper towels in regards to housecleaning in a later post.)

I’m just going to share what we did with some good old fashioned bullet points. Here we go!

• Buy a WHOLE BUNCH of cloth towels that are good at drying. I like lightweight cloth towels better than terry cloth. Flour sack towels are my favorite to use in the kitchen. In addition to the flour sack towels I already own (you can buy those pretty much anywhere these days, by the way), I also purchased the Tekla and Elly dish towels from Ikea, which were $0.79 – $1.00 per towel. (FYI: I like the fabric used for the Tekla towels a little better, they have a little hook for hanging and they’re cheaper.) I am also planning to buy a few of these Bird-E  Towels on Etsy (thanks to reader Sara B. for that suggestion!).

• Store the towels all together in a VERY accessible spot in your kitchen. I bought a bin to keep all the towels in and we keep the bin in a drawer in the middle of our kitchen, one that all of the kids can easily reach.

• Get a small basket to set in the laundry area for soiled towels and cloth napkins. I bought a cute basket to set on our dryer and that’s where all the dirty (dry) towels and cloth napkins go.

• Hang hooks in the laundry or kitchen area. I found wall hooks that say “LAUNDRY” at World Market, but any hooks will do! After we’ve used one of the towels, if it’s too wet to throw into the laundry basket we hang it on a hook. Luckily for me my laundry area is right next to the kitchen, so the hooks hang above the washing machine. If your laundry room isn’t close to the kitchen, find a good spot in your kitchen to place the hooks. The key is that they need to be accessible!

• While we’re at it, get a basket for cloth napkins is stored in an accessible spot in the kitchen. We’ve had cloth napkins for a long time but we would were terrible and almost always just grabbed a paper towel because it was easier than walking across the room to the linen drawers. I took the cloth napkins OUT of the linen drawer and put them into a basket that hangs on the wall above the kitchen counter . As soon as I made that change we have only been using cloth napkins. It’s awesome! (Note: As you can see in the photo above, I haven’t actually hung the basket on the wall yet, but that’s the plan!)

The key to successfully getting rid of paper towels and paper napkins is making the cloth versions accessible and easy to grab. It’s so simple but it took me a while to figure it out! Now that we have our system in place, everyone is using cloth with no issues whatsoever. My kids know where everything is and what to do with dirty towels and napkins. Every time I see one of the towels hanging to dry above the washing machine it makes me so happy!

If you have any addition tips, thoughts or questions, please share! (Also, be sure to check out the comments on my original paper towel post. There are some great tips there, too!)

It’s January, which means it’s time to set a resolution! As you know, I like to choose a resolution each year that is related making a change in the kitchen that has a positive environmental impact.

A few weeks ago I went to a party at my neighbor’s house. I accidentally spilled a drink and immediately called out, “Where are the paper towels?” Kat then handed me a stack of cloth towels. Because, apparently, real-live cloth towels dry things, too. Who knew? Okay, I knew. But for some reason I kind of ignore that fact a lot.

I use too many paper towels, both for cleaning the house and for day-to-day use in the kitchen. That simple experience at Kat’s house made me realize how dumb it is that I so often default to the disposable solution when I need a towel, even after my efforts to reduce plastic, paper napkins and the like in past years. I was talking about this with Nate’s mom last week and she said that she only buys paper towels when we’re in town. Geesh. It is seriously time that I tackle this ridiculous addiction once and for all!

So, 2015 is the year! No more paper towels! We’ll use up the paper towels we have left and then, after that, I’m not allowing myself to buy any more. As my paper towel supply begins to dwindle, I will be stocking up on cloth towels of all kinds. If you have suggestions for towels you like, both for the kitchen and for cleaning in general, please share!

On a related note, I love our cloth napkins and we use them quite frequently, but I will admit to grabbing paper towels when I’m feeling too lazy to walk across the room to the napkin drawer. All of this is changing this year! Go Team! You Can Do It!

So, who’s with me? Let’s cut the paper towel cord together! I need the moral support. 😉