Sweden Says: "Eat Up Your Greenhouse Effect"
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden 
on 02.10.08
There's a long and strong "waste-not, want-not" tradition in Sweden (IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad is only the most famous of these resourceful - possibly even stingy - Swedes) - so it's no surprise that the country's biggest grocery chains has now dedicated an amusing web site to helping those of us worried about wasting food.
Food production and transport use huge water and energy inputs, and the kitchen is a home's ground zero of energy use and energy waste. In fact the Food Climate Research Network estimates 20 percent of edible purchased food is tossed. Grocery chain ICA has some tips for halting the waste. First off, ICA advocates menu planning and once a week shopping for those doing car shopping. Next, endeavor to eat groceries before "best by" dates, realizing that by the time it is in the fridge its GHG effects are history - tossing it is a double loss. Simple stuff, but still good to be reminded. Amazingly ICA quotes some Swedish life-cycle studies that show tossing one serving of beef wastes enough energy to drive a low-energy light bulb 163 hours, one portion of salmon would light up the bulb 204 hours, and a portion of hothouse tomatoes would keep the bulb going 84 hours. Via ::ICA.se (Swedish only)
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Fabulous! Being a Swede myself, I can't help feeling a little proud of the "environmental attitude" from a grocery store like ICA.
In North America, I don't see any large grocery stores with the kind of environmental initiatives we see in Sweden. Why is that?
Not wasting food can make a huge difference, and there is much room for improvement. A 2004 study, from the University of Arizona, found that almost half of all food ready for harvest never gets eaten.
Check out Tips on buying and storing whole foods for shopping and storage habits to help reduce needless waste. Will save you money too.