Holiday Dinners: How to Avoid Food Waste

On Thanksgiving, it's not only the turkey that gets stuffed. Many people use the day as an excuse for excess and gluttony. An article in GOOD magazine by editor Zak Stone contrasts the approximately 500-calorie meal that was eaten by the Pilgrims to the one that many Americans eat today — which often runs upwards of 2000-3000 calories.

For some simple ways to cut down, conserve, and change our attitudes towards food on Thanksgiving Day and beyond, Stone points readers to Wasted Food, the blog of Jonathan Bloom, author of American Wasteland (Da Capo Lifelong Books, 2010).

Bloom estimates that Americans waste more than 40 percent of the food produced for consumption at a cost of more than $100 billion a year.

Here are some easy ways to minimize waste at holiday meals:

1) Don't pile too much on your plate. Once food is plated, any excess is wasted and can't be used again or given away. If you're still hungry after an initial helping, you can always go back for seconds.

2) Don't eat like there's no tomorrow. The reasons are obvious. Enuf said.

3) Encourage guests to take home leftovers by providing them with takeaway containers. There's usually more food left over than your immediate family can eat alone. By doing this, you'll share your wealth before it spoils.

4) Refrigerate leftovers as soon as possible so they don't go bad; don't leave them on the kitchen counter overnight allowing bacteria to grow. Freeze whatever can be frozen as soon as it cools.

5) After the pressure of cooking the meal is over, dig out your favorite recipe for leftovers or else find new ones. For example, turn your leftovers into turkey tacos or turkey pot pie.

6) Re-organize your refrigerator on Black Friday so you know what's there before you make any more food purchases.

"Thanksgiving is the one day of the year where we're all focused on food," Bloom writes on his blog. "Let's leverage that as a call to action to change our wasteful ways for the rest of the year …  even incremental changes can have a massive effect if they're done by millions of Americans."