Reducing Food Waste

Let’s take a closer look at reducing food waste and what it genuinely offers.

Access to nutritious food is essential to health, yet hunger remains a real concern in countries around the world, including the United States — and food waste is one of the quieter drivers behind it. Food waste refers to edible food that goes uneaten, whether tossed by households, grocers, or restaurants, even when it’s still perfectly fit to eat. Globally, roughly one-third of all food is lost before it ever reaches the people who need it, and in the U.S., up to 40% of food ends up in landfills. The good news is that reducing food waste at home is a genuinely achievable goal with a few consistent habits.

Reducing Food Waste: Buy Food With Intention

Shopping with a clear plan is one of the most effective ways to cut food waste. Only buy what you’ll actually use, especially perishables you can realistically finish within a week. Planning meals for the week ahead — and building a shopping list around that plan — helps avoid impulse purchases. It also helps to avoid grocery shopping while hungry, since that tends to lead to buying more than you need, increasing the odds some of it goes to waste.

Understand Food Dates

Date labels on cans, jars, meat, and packaged foods are a common source of confusion — and a major reason food gets tossed prematurely. A “Sell By” date tells stores when to stop selling an item, not when it becomes unsafe to eat. A “Best If Used By” date simply indicates when quality and flavor are at their peak, not a safety cutoff. Neither label means the food has gone bad. Only “Use-By” or “Expires On” dates are meant to be taken literally, since they reflect a manufacturer’s determination that the product shouldn’t be used past that point.

Manage Your Leftovers

Leftovers often get pushed to the back of the fridge and forgotten once new meals take priority. Storing them somewhere visible, and labeling them with the date and contents, makes it far more likely they’ll actually get eaten. Many leftovers — like roast chicken or turkey — can be repurposed creatively into entirely new meals rather than reheated as-is, which helps keep things interesting enough that they don’t get skipped.

Put Your Freezer to Work

When food won’t get eaten before it spoils, freezing is a simple way to extend its life. Raw meat can be wrapped in freezer paper and placed in a freezer bag, while most fruits and vegetables freeze well with little to no prep — though blanching vegetables beforehand helps preserve their color and vitamin content if they’ll be stored for a while. When using freezer bags, pressing out excess air minimizes ice crystal formation. Freezing food in individual, usable portions also makes it easier to thaw exactly what you need for a given meal. Just remember frozen food isn’t good indefinitely — label items with the freeze date so nothing gets forgotten and wasted anyway.

Don’t Overlook “Imperfect” Produce

Most shoppers instinctively pass over misshapen fruits and vegetables, assuming they’re somehow inferior. In reality, these items carry the same nutritional value and taste as their picture-perfect counterparts — they’re just less visually appealing, which is often why stores discard them in the first place. Intentionally choosing these “ugly” foods when shopping helps reduce the amount tossed before it even reaches a cart.

Donate What You Won’t Use

If you end up with more food than you or your family can realistically eat — whether from a garden, a fruit tree, or simply over-buying — donating the surplus to a local food bank or food rescue program is a far better outcome than letting it rot. It’s a simple way to turn potential waste into a real benefit for someone else.

The Bottom Line on Reducing Food Waste

Cutting food waste doesn’t require a dramatic lifestyle overhaul — small, consistent habits like intentional shopping, understanding date labels, using your freezer wisely, and donating surplus food add up to a meaningful difference. Given that a third of the world’s food goes uneaten while hunger remains a real problem, these small changes carry weight well beyond your own kitchen.

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For general guidance on healthy weight management, see the resources available from the CDC.