Working To Be Less Wasteful

Almost exactly a year ago, we became part of a local program. The premise of the program is great! Food that is expiring and/or has damage is given to farms instead of thrown into landfills. This food’s purpose is to supplement the feed of all sorts of farm animals. Unfortunately, there is now a threat of African swine fever entering Canadian swine herds on imported food. Due to this, we chose to only feed local feeds to our animals. 

However, through this experience, we came to realize several points. 
• Humans waste an enormous amount of food. Any food shortages experienced in the developed world are from our complete lack of responsibility. If we only created as much food as needed for one set period of time, we would have less waste. 
• There is a ridiculous amount of unnecessary packaging and plastic used in the food industry. We are still trying to catch up with the overwhelming amount of garbage that came with all the expired food!!! 

We are now hyper-conscious when we buy foods with an inappropriate amount of packaging. Since many products have so much better packaging options, we decide each time at the counter. We both love to bake and cook. Why are we buying prebaked, packaged goods when we could make them fresh? This would offer us fresh items with no packaging for a fraction of the cost. Since making this decision, we have a fraction of the garbage we used to create. It has forced us to eat healthier and truly allows us to appreciate what we are consuming. We know all the ingredients we’re consuming and only make what we will be consuming. With the work we put in, it’s a shame to waste it.  

Is packaging something you consider when shopping for food?