Reducing Our Food Waste Challenge w/ Glad: December

The year is coming to an end and I’ve been busy setting goals for myself and our family.  One of the biggest challenges in any home, I think is waste.  We have a large family.  I purchase a lot of food to prepare meals and snacks for my husband and I and our 4 growing children.  My food purchases also include extra food items I purchase for yummy recipes I prepare on Cozy Country Living.  This past week I have been cleaning out my cupboards, refrigerators and freezers because I have teamed up with Glad and their Food Waste Diaries for the next several months.  This Is Our Food Waste Challenge for December!

I like having an organized kitchen.  From the pantry to every drawer and shelf in the refrigerator, keeping things easily accessible is something I am constantly battling.  Sometimes with a busy household though, things around the kitchen get all mixed up.  My refrigerator needs the most work.  My kiddos are in there getting milk for breakfast, fruit, yogurt and vegetables for snacks and it looks like a tornado went through there sometimes.  The result is me finding food, sometimes in a bag folded over or twisted to “close”, not good anymore, shoved and squished into the back of my refrigerator that needs to be thrown away.  Sound familiar?

I hate throwing food away, but it happens and I have found myself throwing something away almost every time I am unpacking and putting away groceries.  I think it’s become sort of a second nature thing, like “Oh, well”, which isn’t good.  American families throw out approximately 25 percent of the food and beverages they buy.  The cost estimate of food and beverages thrown out for the average family of four is around $1,300 to $2,200 annually!(National Resources Defense Council, Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill, 2012)  That’s a lot of money!

That’s hard earned money going right in the trash and all of the few dollars here and there I spend on those items DOES add up.  All of that effort, time and energy I spend preparing meals and snacks is wasted if the food eventually gets thrown out.  Storing your food in Glad’s BPA free, reusable, dishwasher & microwave safe, stackable and color coordinated containers is an easy way to help your family keep your food waste down and get more organized in the kitchen.  Interested in keeping your family’s Food Waste down?  Click HERE for more of Glad’s Food Protection Tips.

I will be making time each month and sharing with you what our family’s food waste is and how I am incorporating Glad products into our daily kitchen routine to help our family keep our food waste down.   You know what?  My children are getting older too, so they are going to be sharing some of the responsibility during this Challenge.  So, who’s with me?

Here’s The Changes I’ve made for December:

• I cleaned out my pantry, cupboards, refrigerators and freezers for a clean, fresh start
• I washed and prepared all of my new Glad’s Food Protection Products and am storing it in an easy accessible place, so the whole family can use it
• I’ve started planning the week’s meals every Sunday, starting with “shopping” for ingredients in my kitchen
• I have a waste sheet on my refrigerator that I add to everytime I throw food into the garbage so I can really see what we’ve thrown away, why we threw it away and how much it cost us (reviewing this at the end of the month should give us a good idea of our waste)

 Here’s The Printable I made for our family to keep track of our waste.  Click HERE to Print Yours for Free!

Are you up for the challenge?  Let’s Start the New Year off saving food & money!

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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Glad Food Protection. The opinions and text are all mine.