Admittedly, grocery shopping can sometimes feel more like a long-form exercise in impulse control than a practical errand. It takes character to refuse the siren call of, say, boutique strawberries that are reportedly 65% sweeter than their plebeian counterparts (at only twice the price!). And in an era when your standard supermarket carries 36 different genres of hummus, the pointedly privileged (and, well, bad) habit that is frivolous food shopping can be tough to break — but here’s the thing: It’s anything but innocuous.
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According to a 2020 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 30-40% of the food supply in America goes to waste. “Wasted food is the single biggest material placed in municipal landfills each year,” says Jenny Murphy, Senior Supply Chain Director at City Harvest — a New York City-based nonprofit that rescues surplus food from donors, farms, restaurants, and grocery stores and redistributes it to soup kitchens and food pantries across the five boroughs. “Municipal landfills are one of the biggest contributors of human-related methane in the country, and that's accounting for more than 14% of all of those emissions.”You’re hardly the only culprit, though: We’re talking about a major supply chain issue, here. According to data from environmental research institute, ReFED, around fifty-four million tons of food are categorized as “surplus food” in the U.S. annually — which includes anything unsold or uneaten at restaurants, super markets, and at home. And while food rescue non-profits like City Harvest are dedicated to finding ways to re-allocate some of that good surplus food towards communities facing food insecurity, the vast majority ends up either in landfills, incinerated, down the drain, or left to rot. Mathematically speaking, that equals out to about 9 billion meals that aren’t going to folks in need. And on top of that, whether or not it gets discarded, each and every food item we encounter utilizes resources in its production, packaging, storage, shipping, and preservation. Which is to say, all those wilting greens you’ve purchased for a salad you’ll never make are part of a larger, toxic pattern.
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Yes, you’re burning through precious resources — but the problem is twofold. You’re also doing so in a climate where more than 38 million people in the United States are food insecure, and according to the USDA, that number is not getting smaller. “Since the start of the pandemic, food insecurity rates in New York City have risen 36% and nearly nine in ten food pantry users say that they expect to rely on pantries more often this year because of rising food costs.” says Murphy. “And according to the research that we're seeing, we expect this high level of need to persist throughout at least 2025.”Now, we’re well aware that sitting and doom-spiraling about the state of the world (and your role as a cog in the machine) can be far from productive. But in this particular instance, there are indeed manageable steps we can all take to help slow the cycle or at least shrink the scale of the problem. “In recent research, we learned that about a third of millennials believe their purchase decisions have the greatest impact on society — and that's almost as many as believe that their voting decisions have the greatest impact,” says Surbhi Martin, Vice President of Greek Yogurt & Functional Nutrition at Danone North America.Martin oversees Two Good Yogurt, a brand on a mission to address food waste and hunger through their One Cup, Less Hunger program. For each cup of Two Good sold, the company donates a portion of proceeds to both City Harvest and We Don’t Waste, another food rescue nonprofit run out of Denver, Colorado*. And right now, that equates to 42 million pounds of rescued food (or 36 million meals for folks in need) that might’ve otherwise ended up a landfill. “Our program puts these consumers in the driver's seat and allows them to vote with their dollar every time they purchase a Two Good product,” she says. “And really, they become the catalyst or the hero when it comes to helping reduce food waste while feeding more people.”
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It goes without saying that both hunger and food waste are multi-dimensional issues — but often, if you want to incite change, you have to start small. Picking up a City Harvest volunteer shift or opting for Two Good at your local grocery store are both worthwhile modes of contributing — and valid places to start. But there are also countless small ways we can make an impact — or at least, reduce damage — from our very own kitchens. Here’s how to dive in (without overhauling your lifestyle).
Audit your kitchen
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Plan! Your! Meals!
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Pay attention to portions
Vet your products
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Upcycle your left-overs
Compost
*For every cup sold, Two Good donates 2¢ (5.3oz) and 12¢ (32oz) to food rescue organizations.