{"id":891,"date":"2019-05-31T05:30:07","date_gmt":"2019-05-31T12:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/closedloopcooking.flywheelsites.com\/?p=891"},"modified":"2022-11-27T12:58:12","modified_gmt":"2022-11-27T20:58:12","slug":"real-food-to-reduce-food-waste","status":"publish","type":"reads","link":"https:\/\/closedloopcooking.com\/reads\/real-food-to-reduce-food-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"Real food to reduce food waste"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We\u2019re so excited to bring more voices into Closed Loop Cooking! There\u2019s always room at the table here and we\u2019re honored to launch our guest post series with nutritionist, Rachel Wood of REAL(est) Health<\/a>. Rachel gets real with us about how eating whole foods helps us all reduce food waste.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hey all! My name is Rachel Wood, I\u2019m a holistic nutrition student and the founder of REAL(est) Health<\/a>. I offer holistic nutritional counseling, nutrition, and culinary education to the public and am also a yoga teacher! I teach locally in and around Salem, OR (where I live) and love how I\u2019ve been able to blend my love of nutrition with the self-care practices that yoga prescribes. But enough about me, we\u2019re here to talk about FOOD!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"rachel_wood_yoga_practice\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rachel starting her day off en pose<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when I counsel my clients, I am always preaching about REAL FOOD. It\u2019s partly the reason for the name of my business, REAL(est) Health. I fully believe that one of the best things we can do for our health is to commit to eating whole, unprocessed, from-the-earth foods. Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, legumes, nuts, and seeds. I don\u2019t make a point to tell people what they should or shouldn\u2019t eat. We all have different bodies, different genetic makeup and different needs. But I do know one thing, we could ALL do a better job of eating more plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As many of us are starting to become aware of our own environmental impact, one of the ways we can reduce that impact is by consuming plants in their whole form.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Vegans aren\u2019t wrong\u2013their particular way of eating contributes to less carbon emissions, less water waste and less land usage. It\u2019s true. I\u2019m not saying you have to go vegan or even vegetarian. That\u2019s up to the individual. This is really only one slice of the pie when it comes to reducing waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most processed foods come in boxes, plastic bags or styrofoam packaging. The only foods that don\u2019t come in packaging are whole produce and bulk items (if you bring your own bags \/ containers). And even then a ton of produce items come pre-wrapped (cauliflower) or in some other form of packaging (grapes, berries, cherries, leafy greens, etc). By making a point to purchase things that don\u2019t<\/i> come pre-wrapped (most produce items), you are not only reducing waste from packaging and resources to make the product, but BONUS: it\u2019s good for us! Now I\u2019m not saying you have to get all extreme and use the packaging on fresh produce as an excuse to eat premade frozen meals. Because really that\u2019s just swapping one type of packaging waste for another. HOWEVER, when you choose to purchase vegetables and fruit in their whole form and then consume it, not only are you doing something good for your health but you are reducing your contribution to the massive amount of waste that is made as a result of creating processed foods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"seedlings\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Should we all be thinking about growing our own?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ability to vastly improve our health by purchasing package less food is readily available to many of us, we just have to take advantage of it.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

So to pivot slightly, I want to highlight an area where we as consumers can also make a big difference: food waste. Closed Loop Cooking is founded on the idea that we as everyday people can make big changes when it comes to reducing the amount of food that ends up in the landfill, uncomposted, unutilized to feed a hungry person. I have people tell me all the time that they want to buy fresh produce but every time they do it, they end up throwing some of it away because they didn\u2019t use it in time and it went bad. This, unfortunately, happens sometimes, but most often it\u2019s due to poor planning and that food waste is a very unrealized cost. If you are a regular reader of Closed Loop Cooking, the concept of food waste probably isn\u2019t new to you. But do you know why so much food is being uneaten or thrown out? One problem is that some farms literally can\u2019t get enough help to harvest the crops they\u2019ve planted. Or that some farmers can\u2019t find a buyer for their products. So all that food gets tilled back into the ground. Seems criminal right? And we aren\u2019t even to the part where a large amount of food gets tossed or rejected because it doesn\u2019t meet beauty standards. Ever notice how all the fruits and veggies look relatively the same in the grocery store? This is no coincidence. These fruits and veggies were selected because they are \u201cblemish-free\u201d. So all the food that gets rejected ends up in landfills or gets donated. A few companies have popped up across the US to try and divert that food back into the consumers’ hands. Companies like Imperfect Produce<\/a>, Perfectly Imperfect Produce<\/a>, Misfits Market<\/a>, Food Waste Reduction Alliance<\/a>, Forgotten Harvest<\/a>, Full Circle Farms<\/a>, and so many others, are working to make food waste a thing of the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"compost_scraps\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Aren’t scraps for stock just lovely?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My favorite ways to reduce food waste:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n