{"id":165486,"date":"2021-01-19T02:00:58","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T10:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/?p=165486"},"modified":"2021-01-21T07:58:51","modified_gmt":"2021-01-21T15:58:51","slug":"how-to-compost-your-food-scraps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/how-to-compost-your-food-scraps\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Compost Your Food Scraps in 3 Easy Steps"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you ever find yourself at the end of a meal — stumped by your inability to just take one more bite? Yeah, us too. We know that sometimes our eyes are hungrier than our appetites are, so we end wasting a lot<\/em>\u00a0of food.<\/p>\n

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture,<\/a> \u201cin the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30-40% of the food supply.\u201d This is both at the retail and consumer level, and many things contribute to this number that might be out of your control (think food spoilage or recalls). In addition, a typical household might even throw over 400 pounds of food away each year.<\/p>\n

To play your part in reducing food waste, you can easily compost your food scraps. Composting is super for the environment and has several benefits, like reducing landfill waste, introducing beneficial organisms to Earth\u2019s soil, and feeding nutrients to your plants! According to Eartheasy<\/a>, \u201ccomposting offers a natural alternative to chemical fertilizers when applied to lawns and garden beds.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in doing some good with your leftover food, here are some tips on how you can compost your food.<\/p>\n

Cook with your food scraps<\/strong><\/h3>\n

You can make delicious soups with recycled ingredients and unfinished leftovers. Just be sure to store your scraps in plastic bags or a kitchen compost pail so they stay fresh until you\u2019re ready to use them for something else. Just like that, you\u2019ve recycled your food.<\/p>\n

Keep your scraps in a pail or bucket<\/strong><\/h3>\n

If you don\u2019t plan to cook with your food scraps, you can store your scraps in a pail until you\u2019re ready to move them to their next location. Pails are often great because they offer a tight-fitting lid with generous storage and they\u2019re easy to clean! You can empty this every day or every few days, a timeline that differs from person to person.<\/p>\n

Incorporate your scraps into your soil<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It\u2019s as easy as it sounds — start digging. In this instance, you\u2019ll want to build a trench that serves as the foundation for your garden. Depending, you\u2019ll want to dig about 10 to 12 inches deep. Once done, throw in the items and mix them in with the soil. You\u2019ll want the food to be more refined so they blend better. Give it a few months before you begin to plant on top of the now nutrient-rich soil. If you\u2019d like to try an alternative method, you can add the scraps to a raised garden bed and then bury them slightly into the garden.<\/p>\n

Before you get started, be sure to check with your city to make sure you can properly compost your food scraps. Some cities have rules and regulations, so be sure you know what those are! If you don\u2019t have a garden or somewhere to dump your scraps, you can check to see if your city offers local drop-off or curbside pickup<\/a>.<\/p>\n

xx, The FabFitFun Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":"Do you ever find yourself at the end of a meal -- stumped by your ...","author":7532734,"featured_media":165558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[268,260],"tags":[],"thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/static.fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/19114547\/compost-food.jpg","thumbnail_url_middle_card":"https:\/\/static.fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/19114547\/compost-food-386x200.jpg","formated_date":"January 19, 2021","category_name":"Food & Drink","category_icon":"","author_name":"Ashley McElmurry","trending":false,"sponsored":false,"random_color":"#425dd6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165486"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7532734"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}