Thanksgiving is a time that celebrates cherished aspects of life: gathering with family and friends and sharing good food.
Thanksgiving, while meaningful, is often marked by food waste and food insecurity. ReFED, a national nonprofit, estimated that this year’s holiday would waste 320 million pounds of food, representing $550 million worth of groceries thrown away in a single day.
The excess waste that decomposes in landfills releases nearly 5,000 metric tons of methane, a greenhouse gas with an extreme warming effect that contributes to a large carbon footprint.
Elizabeth Swiman is the director of Florida State University’s Sustainable Campus, an organization that works with other campus departments to keep FSU green and incorporate sustainable living practices into all university activities. Swiman focuses on education and raising awareness to students about how sustainability fits appropriately into their lives.
Swiman emphasizes the importance of understanding how significant quantities of leftovers can adversely affect the environment, even though this issue is sometimes overlooked.
“There are significant environmental impacts,” Swiman said. “This includes the amount of food waste in each step in the chain that it took for the food to land on the table and beyond, and the number of resources (land, water, energy) that went into growing and transporting that food. There are so many resources that it takes to dispose of the wasted food and the methane created from its decomposition that contributes to increased greenhouse gases.”
Food wasted on Thanksgiving ties into food insecurity. The amount of discarded food is equivalent to 267 million meals that could have gone to people in need, according to ReFED.
Hal Gentile serves as the assistant dean of basic needs in FSU’s Department of Student Support and Transitions. She oversees the Food for Thought Pantry that distributes free food to currently enrolled FSU students in an effort to tackle campus hunger.
Gentile offers advice on ways to limit food insecurity, an issue that around 2.3 billion people globally experience.
“Investing in your community, whether that be material, through advocacy or through service, is essential,” Gentile said. “Donating money, non-perishable food, gift cards, produce you have grown, or your time can be direct and immediate interventions. If you know there is a particular community or constituency you are aiming to serve, I always recommend seeing what is already being done and asking the folks who are impacted and who have been doing the work what best meets their localized needs.”
Media inquiries about the issue of food sustainability may reach out to Elizabeth Swiman at eswiman@fsu.edu. For stories addressing food insecurity, contact Hal Gentile at hgentile@fsu.edu.
Elizabeth Swiman, director of FSU Sustainable Campus
What are some best practices by consumers to ensure that Thanksgiving is done in a more sustainable manner?
The best approach is to plan ahead. Consider the likes and dislikes of your Thanksgiving guests and plan the meal for maximum enjoyment. You can shop locally for produce to keep dollars circulating in our local economy. Vegetable scraps generated from food prep can be saved and used to make soup stock; the same with turkey bones. There will always be leftovers, so plan ahead with to-go containers for your guests. Another way to minimize waste during the holiday is to resist convenience and set the table with reusable place settings and décor. Take sustainability a step further and consider volunteering and/or helping a local food pantry stock up on Thanksgiving foods before the holiday so all members of our community can celebrate with a delicious meal.
What is the mission of FSU’s Office of Sustainability?
The mission of Sustainable Campus is to promote a culture of sustainable living in an open forum and to advance the practice of resource conservation at FSU and within the campus community. This enhances the university’s positive impact upon the local and global environment.
Hal Gentile, assistant dean of basic needs
To combat food insecurity, what recommendations do you have for families with massive leftovers on Thanksgiving?
Most food pantries cannot accept cooked food that has been prepared outside of a commercial kitchen. However, there are a few other options:
- The best defense against in-home food waste is reviewing recipes and serving sizes ahead of time and avoiding overpreparing. Have to-go containers ready to send your guests with leftovers.
- Explore the possibility of sharing meals with neighbors around you who lack transportation or the ability to cook for themselves.
- Many communities have mutual aid organizations that may feed hot meals to neighbors who are experiencing homelessness on a weekly basis. Reach out to them before the holiday to see when they are coordinating distributions and what they can serve. If you are saving a dish to share later (and for your own well-being), make sure you follow food safety guidelines and proper temperature regulation; the remnants of a tray of mac and cheese that has been sitting out on the table for the duration of a meal may not be the best to bring to a meal share days later.
- Compost what you can (remember: no bones, meat, or fat) and fuel your garden.
- Unused sealed products can find a new home at your local food pantry.
- Turkey bones can be stripped and used to make a savory broth for winter soups.
What initiatives does the Food for Thought Pantry perform to tackle the issue of food insecurity on campus?
The Pantry serves food to currently enrolled FSU students out of our primary location every weekday (barring University closures). Our offerings include fresh produce, frozen meat, bread, dry pantry staples, prepackaged meals and more. We also host mobile food distributions 3-4 times a semester where we serve food to students elsewhere on campus. These events are usually coordinated with registered dietitians on campus to combine nutrition education with food access. We collaborate with University Health Services in other ways, including providing bags of food to students who visit a clinician and express they are experiencing food insecurity.
We have plans in the works to introduce some more cooking demonstrations and fun programming that engages, teaches and supports students across campus. In coordination with the Basic Needs Hub and the rest of the Department of Student Support and Transitions, the Pantry also provides SNAP support, dining hall meal swipe distribution and other resource assistance to students facing acute crisis related to financial instability, of which food insecurity is one expression.
How does the campus community aid in the fight against hunger?
Here at the Food for Thought Pantry we are so fortunate that we have a deep base of student volunteer support due to partnerships with organizations, such as the FSU Center for Leadership and Service, and FSU Presidential Scholars. Many of our colleagues in the community, especially those in surrounding rural areas, struggle to maintain a consistent volunteer base. Not every community has the same exact gaps to fill, and we are strongest when we build together and learn from each other.