BEANS, CANNED, OR COOKED
BEANS, CANNED, OR COOKED
REFRIGERATE IT:
REFRIGERATE IT:
Yes, after opened or cooked
Yes, after opened or cooked
ABOUT GO GREEN
This educational website serves to spread awareness of the global food waste problem with an emphasis on the environmental consequences on our planet, provide ways of reducing food waste that anyone can easily adopt into their own lifestyle, highlight personal accounts of college students dealing with food waste, and outline a variety of organizations dedicated to the issue that people can learn more about and consider supporting. This website is a source of credible information for you to gain more insight into the global food waste problem and will hopefully encourage you to be more intentional and conscious of your spending and food waste.
MY STORY
Growing up in an Asian family, I’ve always been taught the importance of not wasting food because there are so many people who aren’t able to access food. There is an old Chinese saying I grew up hearing that goes, “Every grain of rice is a drop of sweat from a farmer’s brow.” For me and a lot of kids growing up in Chinese families, that was the saying that our parents used to say to teach us to not waste food.
Despite growing up with a mindset against food waste, it seems inevitable in the consumer culture in which we live that we will occasionally need to toss out spoiled produce and leftovers.
When I first came into college at UCSB, I was surprised by the amount of food wasted in the dining commons. Many students put more food on their trays than they can actually consume because it’s easy to overestimate how much you can eat when the dining commons are all-you-can-eat buffet style. Some students may even do this to try to get their money’s worth due to how expensive college is.
Even food that hasn’t been touched at all must be tossed as long as it’s on a student’s plate for safety and health reasons and can’t be donated to a food bank which is quite a tragic loss.
Starting in my third year of college, I no longer had a meal plan so instead of going to the dining halls for daily meals, me and my housemates who shared an off-campus apartment had to consistently prepare home-cooked meals, which was a difficult transition initially. We had to adapt and become more organized in planning out what groceries to buy and what items could be procured for free from the food pantry near our apartment. We often bought too much groceries, thinking that the food would last a few weeks before we needed to go on another grocery shopping trip, but we found that we ended up throwing out a lot of spoiled produce and leftovers that we either didn’t finish quick enough or forgot about. I realized that it’s much easier to reduce food waste when eating out, but home-cooked meals require more organization and effort to plan what things to cook to use up certain ingredients, what products are likely to expire soon, etc.
As a result, I became more conscious of my food waste and tried to be more conservative with my grocery shopping habits. It definitely helped that I had three other people living with me to keep each other accountable since we shared groceries and kitchen appliances including the fridge. We also found out about a food pantry provided by UCSB near where our apartment that we went to a few times a week just to get a few items including eggs, bread, granola bars, onions, and pasta that we didn’t have to purchase on our weekly grocery trips. We also stocked up on canned food because they last much longer than fresh produce.
I researched the consequences of global food waste and found out some egregious statistics that I wanted to share through this website to spread awareness of this important issue. However, rather than trying to overly-stress the extreme urgency of this issue, my hope is that readers will become more conscious of their food waste and be convinced to adopt more environmentally-friendly lifestyle practices to reduce their daily food waste after learning new information from this website. Most people are already overwhelmed with all the other issues going on in the world right now, so the purpose of this website isn't to scare anyone into immediate action, but rather to inspire people to make small positive lifestyle changes that may have a rippling effect on the global waste problem.
- Founder, William Qu