QUEZON City, Philippines (January 2) – The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization said that 1.3 billion metric tons of food is wasted every year. On a daily basis, a seventh of the world’s population “goes to bed hungry,” while more than 20,000 children under the age of five die from hunger. The March 2015 Social Weather Station survey showed that 11.1 percent or an estimated 2.5 million families experienced moderate hunger while 2.4 percent or 522,000 families endured severe hunger in the last three months.
Those who eat three or more times a day are lucky enough to continue the journey of their life, not worrying about where the next meal will come from. Sometimes these people are blind to the importance of food, and, sad to say, will only come to awareness once everything is too late – when a raging 
food shortage is already upon them.
Admit it or not, most of us are guilty of food wastage, no matter how small. It’s about time that we act responsibly against this kind of wastage so here are some helpful tips on how we can prevent it:
(1) Think before you shop – you should think on what you should buy and do your shopping list and verify your needs and wants in order to have a fast shopping experience.
(2) At home, when unpacking groceries, you can put the new ones at the back and put the older ones in front, this way you can use up the older stuff before it expires. Store the food according to their instruction, keep your fridge between 1-5°C – this helps you get the best from your food.
(3) In cooking/ meal time, do not serve too much food, and as much as possible, clean your plate! Ask yourself what do you want to eat, or just do not get too much food in your plate, if you want more you can always go back for it, you can also split a dish, if it is too much you can give the giant portion to your friend, if not, it is also good to take leftovers home.
(4) Love your leftovers – using leftovers to make delicious meals is a smart way to ensure you eat everything you buy. There are so many recipes that can help you create new dishes out of leftovers. Make sure to label your leftover to know how long it been in your refrigerator. Always remember that things do not last forever in your freezer, freezing can be a great asset in extending the foods lifespan but it will eventually dry that food out.
You can also manage to have a daily or weekly notes about the things you throw away so you won’t do it again in the future. Bloom even suggests adding dollar signs to each thing you throw away. “That tends to get our attention,”. Another way is to keep track of what’s already in your fridge before you go shopping; that way, you won’t double-up on products and fail to use them before they go bad. As obvious as that sounds, we all forget to do it from time to time.
Sources:
http://greatist.com/health/how-to-ways-reduce-food-waste
http://mashable.com/2015/02/15/food-waste-tips/#Jm4UJDTtOqqm
(written by Amabelle Lopez, edited by Jay Paul Carlos, additional research by Lovely Ann Cruz)
