Personal trainer for food service

New tricks are needed to reduce food waste in everyday life at home. A personal trainer could help you save on food costs and reduce the amount of food that ends up in the trash.

A thesis on food waste in families with children and households Hannele Kiivuori is excited. During her research, she has discovered numerous tricks that families can use to reduce the amount of food that ends up as waste.

While working on my thesis, I also came up with the idea of a new type of home service:

"A personal food supply trainer could help guide households. The trainer would help shape everyday food supply planning. In practice, the trainer could be a digital service that takes into account the individual needs of the family."

According to Kiivuori, digital and data-based solutions can help households reduce their food waste in the future.

New methods are needed, as household food waste is Natural Resources Institute Finland's research Based on this, an estimated 120–160 million kilograms are produced annually. That is about 20–25 kilograms per nose.

"In the digital service, recipes could be modified to suit family size. Personalized shopping lists would adapt based on how much has previously gone to waste."

Leftover food day helps

Simply knowing about food waste is usually not enough to change people's behavior in everyday life. Kiivuori is working on a Master of Science (MSc) thesis at Laurea University of Applied Sciences on the cause-and-effect relationships of everyday routines that increase or decrease food waste at home.

Everyday food management for families with children is made easier by planning meals, thinking about portion sizes, having leftover food days, and storing food properly.

"If you only plan one or two meals ahead, you have to think more often about what to cook. If you anticipate and plan a little further ahead, you free up your thinking capacity and your everyday life becomes easier," Kiivuori reflects.

Planning also prevents situations where extreme hunger causes you to make quick, perhaps unhealthy, choices.

A place for everything in the kitchen

If you have leftovers from a meal, it is a good idea to store them in meal units. Large quantities, especially when freezing, should be divided into several containers.

"It's good if food items always have their own places in the kitchen. For example, yogurts always go on a specific shelf, pastas the same way. That way you can see at a glance what's missing, and you don't have to strain your memory or search the bottoms of the shelves."

Kiivuori would also like to hear from kitchen and refrigerator designers:

“Are the current refrigerator standards correct? For example, is there a need for a vegetable drawer when there is nothing to find there? Could the design of the refrigerator help to better display products?”

Photo: Scanstockphoto.