Food-waste apps

How to get the most from your food

By Culinate staff

March 21, 2013

As Claire Thompson recently pointed out on Grist, America does food to the extremes: We waste some 40 percent of our food, even while a sixth of the country struggles with food insecurity.

For those of us who can afford the technology, however, a number of apps are coming out to help prevent food waste. Thompson lists Food Cowboy, which helps companies donate food more efficiently, and Zero Percent, which helps nonprofits take advantage of retail food waste. She also discusses Food Star and the Urban Food Initiative, two projects aiming to reduce the waste on farms and at grocery stores.

Then there are the meal apps, which aim to cut down on food waste via better planning. There are, of course, plenty of extant meal-planning apps — including the menus and the grocery-list generator in Culinate’s own How to Cook Everything app, and the upcoming Five Plates app from Culinate contributor Melissa Lion.

No mobile device? Try websites — such as The Fresh 20 — that will help you plan and shop without one.