Preventing Food Waste with Temperature
It is estimated that somewhere between 30 and 40% of the food supply in the U.S. goes to waste. This is, of course, a shame. It means that up to 40% of the hard work that farmers, ranchers, food packers, manufacturers, chefs, grocery store workers, and home cooks do is also wasted. This blog post is not going to fix all of that! But preventing food waste requires both systemic, large-scale solutions and—more to the point here—far more tiny, small-scale, individual solutions. In this post, we hope to provide you with the tools to help curb this problem in your own home kitchen, saving you labor and stretching your grocery budget further.
Temperature is key
One of the great enemies of food is temperature. If the temperature goes wrong, the food spoils more quickly. Storing your food at the right temps will increase its lifespan and help you decrease waste.
Check your fridge temperature
One of the best things you can do to make your food last longer is to make sure your refrigerator is running at the right temperature. A home refrigerator should be running between about 35 and 39°F (1 and 4°C)—just warm enough to not freeze your food and just cold enough to stay outside the temperature danger zone. How do you know if it’s running right? Monitor it! A leave-in probe thermometer like NODE allows you to know what the temperature of your fridge is. You can use it from far away if you connect it to the free ThermoWorks App. If the motor dies, the fridge fuse gets flipped, or someone leaves the door ajar for too long, it’ll alert you. More likely, your fridge just isn’t running at the right temp. A quick adjustment to its settings will fix the problem.
If off-site monitoring is more than you’re looking for, an ambient thermometer like SPOT will be great. Put it on the shelf in your fridge and look at it every time you open the door. It reacts to temperature changes somewhat slowly, so opening the fridge for some milk won’t cause it to spike immediately.
By keeping your fridge at temp, you’ll keep your fresh foods fresher and won’t risk frost-damaging your tender greens or freezing your sour cream.
Monitor your freezer, too
NODE can come in a 2-external-probe model, and keeping one of those probes in your freezer is a great idea. You don’t want to find a bag of frozen corn that has thawed and refrozen into a solid lump, and you certainly don’t want any ground beef or sausages going through multiple freeze-thaw cycles. Try to keep your freezer as close to 0°F (-18°C) as possible for maximum holding and safety.
Monitor humidity for best results
Most vegetables store best in high-relative-humidity environments. The crisper drawer in your refrigerator is designed to maintain those conditions, but how well it works may be anyone’s guess. A Relative Humidity SPOT (RH SPOT) is perfect. Put one in the crisper drawer and check it from time to time. If the humidity isn’t in the 90–100% range, take corrective action by, for instance, wrapping the stems of some fresh herbs in a damp paper towel. That water will help increase the humidity of the whole drawer. At that temperature and humidity, everything from cucumbers and turnips to cilantro and dill will last much longer without shriveling, wilting, or getting squidgy.
Use cool storage where appropriate and available
Some foods store better at cool temperatures than cold or warm. Potatoes and onions (and shallots) come to mind. These root vegetables are happiest and will last the longest when stored between 45 and 55°F (7 and 13°C). Root cellars were invented for that reason—you can use the natural coolness of a cellar to keep your potatoes from spoiling or sprouting. They also want to be at 80–90% relative humidity. Use your RH SPOT or your NODE with RH sensor to keep an eye on both.
Cook your food right
Of course, one of the best ways to make sure less food goes to waste is to make sure it’s all eaten. And that is more likely to happen if it’s delicious and properly cooked. Our entire blog is devoted to that purpose, but right off, we can say that using your Thermapen ONE in your cooking will make your meals tastier, and less likely to have leftovers that go to waste. Good food goes fast, and Thermapen ONE will help you make great food!
Get the tools you need to prevent food waste here:
