#FoodWasteFriday: Helping Your Kiddos Reduce Their Waste!
Children and food waste seem to be a match made in heaven sometimes, doesn’t it?
These notorious little beings are well-known for picking out their favorite part of the trail mix and leaving the leftovers an inedible slobbery mess or being so excited to eat a banana but after one bite, they refuse to eat rest. We have struggled through these challenges ourselves, and if youngsters are in your sphere of living, we sure you have, too!
Since most of the food waste that ends up in our landfill comes from our homes, here are a few resources and ideas of how you can help the kids in your world reduce their food waste.
Pro Tip: Kids Eat In Color is a great nutritional and food waste resource to follow for additional ideas!
Kid-Friendly Educational Videos:
Kids Go Undercover to Discover Food Waste in their Homes - SheKnows
Saving Food - SavingFood EU
What Happens When You Regrow Vegetables From Kitchen Scraps? - Self Sufficient Me
Ideas to Reduce Kid-Produced Food Waste in Your Home:
Get the kids involved with starting a garden or in growing food from your food scraps. Check out this book for growing food from leftovers if you need help getting started.
Using muffin tins to make a “charcuterie” snack tray. This approach not only can help with utilizing items that need to be used up but creates a self-selecting model that can encourage independence and healthy choice-making. You can view an example of one here.
Get the kids to help with meal prep. Having your kiddo in the kitchen with you can be a great way for a child to learn about the effort it takes to make food and encourages respect for the meal-making process.
Serve smaller portions. It’s easier to serve up seconds than it is to struggle through making them finish their plate or throwing what they don’t eat into the trash bin.
Read about food waste together. Here are some suggestions to get you started:
Build a compost pile with your kiddos. This is a sure way to create excitement around making your food waste an environmentally friendly endeavor and can help foster engineering and scientific interest. Join Crown City Composters to help you get started!
Make an end of week leftover “buffet” and pair it with a movie for a food and flick night! Who has the energy or creativity to cook at the end of the week? Instead of ordering up your go-to takeout, reheat leftovers, pull out some snack items that can double as a dinner side dish, put on a family movie, and call it a night. Winning all around!
Did we miss a brilliant idea for helping reduce the amount of food waste your kids create? If so, email us! We’d love to hear from you!
