What Happens When We Waste Less Food

By Jinan Banna, PhD RD

Jinan Banna, PhD, RD, is a professor of nutrition at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Her research focuses on food behaviors, sustainable eating, and food waste reduction, with a long history of work supporting food security in diverse communities. She is also a registered dietitian and an experienced science communicator featured across major media outlets.

Reducing wasted food has so many implications for the health of the body, the environment, and the economy. Given the large quantity of food intended for human consumption that is wasted around the world, I became interested in this topic as a research focus in my role as a professor at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. My field is nutrition, and reduction of wasted food ties into the focus of many of my studies on promotion of food security and sustainable eating practices.

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Over the past thirteen years as a professor and registered dietitian, my work has focused on understanding how people make food-related decisions and how these behaviors connect to both nutrition and broader food system outcomes. My research has included the development of culturally relevant tools to assess eating habits and evaluate nutrition education programs,1,2,3,4 and I have explored how food behaviors influence both health and food security. In recent years, I have become increasingly interested in how reducing wasted food can support more sustainable food systems while also helping individuals make the most of the foods they purchase and prepare.

My research examining wasted food has focused on adolescents, exploring both how much food is discarded and the reasons behind those decisions. This has included work using digital tools to document foods selected and left uneaten,5 as well as interviews to better understand the thought processes that lead young people to waste certain items.6 These studies have provided insight into patterns of food wasted during a key developmental stage and have helped shape my interest in practical strategies to support more mindful and sustainable food practices.

One of my previous studies involved use of a mobile food record to measure the amount and type of food wasted in adolescents, and I became interested in how new technology may be used to better understand how to reduce wasted food.5 I was excited to learn about Alma as a new app for diet tracking, and was particularly interested in how it might contribute to efforts to reduce wasted food at home and increase awareness of leftover use.

I decided to pose a simple question on the app: “How can I reduce wasted food?” Given that Alma allows one to keep a record of foods eaten, it was able to give personalized recommendations in response to this inquiry. Some of the suggestions included:

• Buy protein like chicken breast in bulk, portion and freeze immediately

• Purchase hardy vegetables such as peppers and squash that last longer

• Keep frozen berries as backup for your regular oatmeal breakfasts

• Buy lemon in bulk for Mediterranean cooking since they keep well and add flavor to many dishes

Alma also provided helpful advice regarding leftover ingredients. I posed the question: “Give me some ideas for leftover feta cheese,” seeking to broaden my horizons. The app gave me a number of ways to incorporate this into various dishes, suggesting the following:

• Mediterranean quinoa bowl with roasted vegetables and tahini dressing

• Feta-stuffed chicken including sundried tomatoes and herbs

• Shakshuka with eggs, tomatoes and spices

• Watermelon feta salad with mint and balsamic vinegar

I’ll be excited to put some of these ideas into practice.

References

1. Banna JC, Vera Becerra LE, Kaiser LL, Townsend MS.  Using qualitative methods to improve questionnaires for Spanish speakers: Assessing face validity of a food behavior checklist. Journal of the American Dietetic Association. 2010;110:80-90.

2. Banna JC, Townsend MS. Assessing factorial and convergent validity and reliability of a food behaviour checklist for Spanish-speaking participants in U.S. Department of Agriculture nutrition education programmes.  Public Health Nutrition. 2011;14(7):1165-1176.

3. Suzuki A, Choi SY, Lim E, Tauyan S, Banna JC. Evaluation of factorial validity and reliability of a food behavior checklist for low-income Filipinos. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. 2017;49:593-598.   

4. Banna JC, Buchthal OV, Tauyan S. Assessing face validity of a food behavior checklist for limited-resource Filipinos. Hawai'i Journal of Medicine & Public Health. 2015;74(10): 334-340.

5. Panizza C, Boushey CJ, Delp E, Kerr D, Lim E, Gandhi K, Banna JC. Characterizing early adolescent food waste using the mobile food record. Nutrients. 2017;9(2): 93. 

6. Zhao C, Panizza C, Fox K, Boushey C, Shanks C, Ahmed S, Chen S, Serrano E, Zee J, Fialkowski M, Banna JC. Plate waste in school lunch: barriers, motivators and perspectives of SNAP-eligible early adolescents in the US. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. 2019;51(8):967-975.