Hey There, Welcome!

This blog is dedicated to helping you figure out how to navigate the confusing world of sustainability and making The Simple Switch one step at a time! My goal is to help you realize that making the shift to thinking environment first while also creating a sustainable lifestyle is not actually as hard as it seems.

As they say, we only get one Earth and it’s time we starting taking care of her!

A little bit about who I am as we get started on this journey. I’m Alana, that’s me in the photo. I started my switch about 5 years ago. My Simple Switch has continued to grow and at this point I am proud to say that with almost every decision made in my home considers the environment first. From everyday decisions like buying groceries to much larger ones like buying a new car and I can tell you, it takes time… so stick with it! Over the past years, I have realized that it is not necessary to do everything at once. Making one small switch, when the time is right, has made this lifestyle one that can be sustained, never feels inconvenient and allows room for growth along the way.

It’s just my husband, Ben, and our two dogs here in the home. Ben is a middle school environmental science teacher, he has the patience of gold, and our dogs keep watch over our yard and deck, keeping all the deer and squirrels at bay. We all love getting in the car and taking a trip to one of the parks in the area and spending time outside.

This blog is designed to make sustainability simple and to figure out the next steps that work for you and your family—one switch at a time.

After all this talk about me, let’s get into it.

The Simple Switch – Reducing Food Waste

According to the USDA, it is estimated that 133 billion pounds of food waste come from the retail stores and consumers in 2010. The U.S. has set a goal to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030. Knowing that as a country this goal has been set, it is time to start thinking about how we can make a switch at home to reduce our personal food waste.

Dairy Good (2016)

What can we do at home to help? It’s time to take a step back and think about what food did you throw away over the past few weeks? Expired food from the fridge, leftovers that went bad, cooked too much food, the bread got moldy on the table? These all happen on a daily basis, but there are a few tips to help reduce it.

1. Stop making one grocery trip a week—make smaller, more frequent trips. This will help prevent buying food that you think you might want to eat later in the week, but when the time comes it doesn’t seem good anymore. You are less likely to forget about that salad you purchased and put in the drawer. Buying in bulk can also create a lot of waste, consider skipping bulk for a few weeks.
2. Consider a small compost bin—keeping food out of landfills should be the top priority. I do not have room for an all-out compost station at my house, but we have found a way to have a small compost by only composting vegetable peels and other small pieces of food that typically went into the trash when we are preparing our dinner. It’s a very small change, but just something small is great.
3. Skip the grocery the last week of every month—make yourself figure out what can be served for dinner with just the food left in your house. I get it, nobody likes looking at an empty fridge but it is worth it to be sure you are using the food you already have. This also helps to figure out what is left at the end of the month and consider if it is even something worth purchasing in the future, you will soon find that there might be some foods you purchase regularly out of habit that actually do not get consumed enough to continue purchasing.

I am looking forward to hearing about the solutions you have found for reducing the food waste on a daily basis.

Stay tuned for more tips on making The Simple Switch!

References:

Dairy Good (2016). What A Waste (Infographic). March 3, 2016. https://www.usdairy.com/news-articles/what-a-waste-infographic

USDA (n.d.) Food Waste FAQ’s. U.S. Department of Agriculture. Retrieved on January 20, 2021 from https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs.