You will have keto leftovers and that is a good thing. According to their website, Stop Food Waste Day started in the United States in 2017. The day went global in 2018. They have aligned with the United Nations sustainable development goals and aim to work with suppliers, create sustainable food practices and raise awareness of food wastage.
Keto Leftovers Can Help the Problem
The website has some pretty amazing statistics listed. About ⅓ of all food that is produced globally is wasted every year. 45% of fresh food such as root crops, fruit and vegetables is lost or wasted each year. The average American family wastes $1,866 of food each year. Can you imagine what you could do with an extra $1,800?
8% of all greenhouse emissions each year are contributed to food loss and waste. And this is the most disturbing statistic for me of them all; 25% of the food wasted each year could feed all 795 million undernourished people in the world. Just a quarter of our food waste could feed the world’s hungry. That one definitely made me stop and think.
Keto Helped Us
I have found that keto has helped me with our family’s food waste. Keto makes you think about what you are going to eat and you really have to plan ahead in order to make it work. We do a food plan for the week so we know what we are going to eat. Breakfasts are the same for the week and we make them up ahead of time.
This week, I’m having cheesy biscuits and bacon that are pre-cooked and I pop them in the microwave for 20 seconds. Lunches are leftovers from the dinner the night before. Dinner is pre-planned and we make sure we make 4 servings instead of 2 so we have the leftovers.
A Meal Plan Helps Use Those Keto Leftovers
We make a list of what we need for groceries based on our meal plan. It used to be that we would go to the store and wander up and down the aisles for inspiration. Now, we skirt the outer aisles where the fresh food is, and we are good to go. In and out. It’s a beautiful thing. We tend to buy more fresh vegetables than we used to but we use them because they are in our plan. The amount of food we waste on keto is truly minimal.
When we first started keto, I soon realized that we would need to keep fresh food longer and I did some research. We invested in a vacuum sealer and it has paid for itself 5 times over! I go to Costco and get a bunch of meat for a good price. We focus on pork, hamburger and chicken. When we get home, we portion it all out into 4 servings and vacuum seal it. We mark on the bag what it is and the servings in them, and we stick them in the freezer.
It Can Be a Lot of Work
Does that sound like a lot of work? Yes, it is. Is it worth it? Yep! We take out a bag and have that for supper. Not thawing out all the meat in the original package means we don’t have to have hamburger for 5 nights in a row. We just take what we need and the rest stays in the freezer, ready to be used.
Shredded cheese is also cheaper at Costco but there is so much in a bag that we couldn’t possibly use it all in time. Again, we put some in a bag and vacuum seal it and take out the smaller portions as we need it. We also do that for nuts so they stay fresh.
Fresh Food is a Good Way to Prep for Keto Leftovers
We normally buy our vegetables fresh each week at the grocery store or local market. But we still prep them when we get home. I chop up the cauliflower into bite sized pieces and measure out a cup of it. I put them in a ziplock bag and put a piece of folded up, dry paper towel in with them. The paper towel sops up the moisture that makes the vegetable go bad and keeps it fresher, longer. Then the bags are ready to grab in the morning as a side with our main dish we take for lunch.
Prepping takes a little longer and it can seem daunting when you first get your food home, but it is so worth it each and every day. I’ll admit, we started this simply because we didn’t want to spend money on food and have it go bad. It wasn’t an altruistic goal of ours to stop food waste. But the end result is the same – less waste is good for us, good for society, and good for the environment. Win, win, win!
Wendy
