Food waste is an epidemic. Here's how you can help cure the problem

It breaks my heart when I see food waste.  

Building a dish around one central ingredient excites me. If I'm going to do a carrot or blueberry dish, I go all-in on that one ingredient because using lots of ingredients can result in a hodgepodge of stuff you can’t always identify. 

But it’s much more than that. 

Many chefs are trying to connect with deep-rooted ideas our ancestors used, bringing old-world cooking into a new light. If I have carrot peelings and leftover chunks, I can make a puree. I didn't go to culinary school, but I learned 50 different ways to cook something. Looking at any ingredient with constant curiosity is probably the best way to create dishes and reduce food waste. 

On June 12, the FDA, USDA, and EPA announced the “National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics” as part of President Joe Biden’s approach to tackle climate change, feed people, address environmental justice and promote a circular economy. 

The average U.S. family of four spends $1,500 each year on food that ends up uneaten. More than of U.S. municipal waste stream is organic waste, including 66 million tons of food. Food is the single most common material found in landfills, comprising 24% of municipal solid waste. 

How can you prevent food waste?

You can support this initiative, whether you’re a restaurant chef or home cook. Here’s how: 

• Repurpose commonly discarded parts of vegetables, fruits, or proteins. Vegetable peelings can be fermented, used in a nukadoko bed for pickling, dehydrated into powders, or friend into crispy garnishes (by washing them in cold water and frying them at 300 degrees). 

• Use fish bones, chicken carcasses, or meat trimmings to make stock. Reduce and freeze concentrated stock in ice cube trays to add flavoring to dishes. Or you can make concentrated vinegarette. I make chicken-fat vinegarette by scraping the fat off the stock, reducing it, and then adding vinegar, shallots, garlic, a little bit of mustard, and then returning the chicken fat to make a dressing out of the leftover chicken remnants. 

• Store or extend the shelf life of ingredients to reduce spoilage. Attack fresh produce right away rather than waiting until later in the week or the weekend. Once an ingredient starts to go bad, it's difficult to bring it back into anything usable.  

• Find a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program near you. It’s one of the best ways to support farms and get better ingredients than what you find in the store.  

• Inspire others. Post pictures showing how you’re using ingredients, where you’re getting them from, what’s in season, and tag the farmers to show what’s possible. Social media used as a tool can be quite powerful. 

• Dip your toe in the water. When I pick crabs with my family, I ask for a bag for the shells so I can compost them or harness more flavor from them before they end up in the trash. Cook them down with either butter or virgin olive oil, deglaze a white wine, and add water for a delicious stock. You can also do the same with heavy cream because fat equals flavor. 

Find a good farmers' market

My final piece of advice: Visit a real farmers' market on a weekend. Make friends, ask questions and buy a little bit of everything. With farmers, you get carrot greens and cauliflower stems, which are rarely seen in grocery stores but are equally delicious and versatile. Look up how to use unfamiliar ingredients online or on YouTube.  

I believe it adds intimacy to tell people you’re feeding them with food grown in their backyards. I want to captivate people with stories like that. Local farmers work too hard only to have half their produce thrown away in professional or home kitchens. Try one of these tips this week during the long holiday weekend and keep doing it for the rest of the summer. 

Matthew Kern is the chef and co-owner ofOne Coastal in Fenwick Island, Delaware. He was the first Delaware chef in the James Beard Awards' 34-year history to be named a finalist in any culinary category (Best Chef, Mid-Atlantic).