Eat to save the planet, it's not just what I eat, that's what I do not eat

In three weeks after adopting a diet designed by scientists to support a planet of 10 billion humans, I discovered my own relationship with food and the ups and downs of food. 2050. This week, I looked in my fridge realized that there is one thing with which I really struggled.

In rejecting the spinach, I looked with shame at the remains packaged with the best intentions in the world but left to wither slowly and turn into jars and various other containers. I watched the nacho vegan cheese (which you to have I was preparing to add to the menagerie, and I wondered if she would suffer the same moldy fate. While eating what was called a planetary health food diet kept me focused on what is on the plate, it also highlighted the food that is in the trash.

Food waste is a huge problem, and while it's not just American, we're doing more than most countries. The Ministry of Agriculture estimated that garbage accounted for 30 to 40 percent of our food supplies, while the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that "more food was reaching landfills and landfills. combustion plants as any other material in our daily garbage "in 2015. Previously published research shows that the average American is wasting nearly a pound of food each day. At the same time, 40 million shocking Americans lack food security.

There have been attempts to solve some of the problems of food waste. Delivery services that send you ugly products, farmers (in theory) would reject (in theory). compost programs in the city. But as Emily Atkin found for the New Republic, the first one proved a bit problematic. While it empties garbage from landfills where it can produce methane and makes good use of it, better use would be to provide it to people who need it. Less waste of food would result in less growth for farmers and ranchers, reducing the need for water, land and nutrients.

And it's something that's not just about the United States, but the whole world has to work. The EAT-Lancet report describing the diet of the planet that I tested at the wheel shows that halving food waste is the single greatest action that would help reduce global fertilizer applications. Waste reduction alone would also reduce the use of water in agriculture to a sustainable level and help reduce some agricultural land use and greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse. (Other strategies, such as changing the global diet, are more effective in this regard.)

In a report on the EAT-Lancet report, the commission behind this report suggests collecting leftovers for lunch or finding creative uses for them. That's what I used to do, but my creative use of turning the back of my fridge into a science experiment is probably not what the authors of the report had in mind. The brief also suggests preparing a meal plan, which I usually do when I do not feel lazy (see Appendix A below).

But after making "strange nachos", which involved vegan cheese, sweet potatoes and cauliflower, I had that ridiculous amount of sweet potato queso left. It was too little for a future return of nachos, but not enough to justify rejection. In fact, I realized that was the case with almost all of my leftovers. Here is the handful of lentils I had sworn to add to a salad at some point.

I've always been a little hateful. But the sanitary plaque of the planet made it switch ironically to the extent that I make whole grains in bulk and I buy more perishable products to follow the diet.

I do not really have any bright ideas to solve this problem, apart from eating my leftovers. But the problem made me think that we do not spend enough energy talking about what is easily the lowest fruit of the arsenal of sustainable food, a diet that does not cause hypocrisy, by example.

Nobody likes this dreaded Sunday when it's time to clean the fridge; shovel the moldy remains and throw the leftovers half-spoiled without opening the cardboard in the trash. It's a terrible chore that basically involves throwing money and the planet in the trash. Now that I am a little more aware of the problem, I will do my best to make the back of my refrigerator no longer a wasteland of fruitless dreams.

Speaking of which, start me if you have any ideas for using this vegan cheese.