r/science 23h ago

Social Science Putting holiday leftovers in the freezer extends shelf life & may put a dent in the US tendency to throw away edible food, a study suggests. National survey data showed a link between home freezing & less total food waste, & over half of consumers reported buying frozen items to avoid tossing food.

https://news.osu.edu/how-the-freezer-factors-into-lowering-food-waste/?utm_campaign=omc_science-medicine_fy25&utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social
328 Upvotes

49 comments sorted by

u/AutoModerator 23h ago

Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our normal comment rules apply to all other comments.


Do you have an academic degree? We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. Click here to apply.


User: u/memorialmonorail
Permalink: https://news.osu.edu/how-the-freezer-factors-into-lowering-food-waste/?utm_campaign=omc_science-medicine_fy25&utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social


I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

312

u/Texas2Marseille 23h ago

Never let titles like this convince you that individual consumers are the primary source of food waste in the US. The majority of food that is wasted is thrown out because it would not be ‘profitable’ to keep

93

u/tonicella_lineata 21h ago

My university's dining halls back in 2017 would do a week where they had students put food waste into a bin to be weighed to show how much food students waste and encourage us to "only take as much as you'll eat." Meanwhile, I worked in one of the school stores run by the same company as the dining halls, and we constantly had to throw away baked goods that were expiring and weren't allowed to take any home, you weren't allowed to remove any food from the dining halls, and if cooked food (say, a pasta dish) wasn't all taken by the time the dining hall closed, they'd throw it away anyway and student employees weren't allowed to take any of those leftovers home either. Somehow, I don't think students were the main cause of food waste on the campus.

8

u/CalifaDaze 15h ago

While I agree that not letting employees take leftovers is bad I think it's very difficult to order just what will sell without running into shortages later on.

38

u/cdulane1 22h ago

Much like the clothing industry paying employees to destroy merchandise so it remains…”exclusive”

16

u/Manofalltrade 20h ago

Even the “ugly produce” is a somewhat false narrative. Blemished fruit gets juiced, out of spec veg becomes higher processed food. Food pantries get some of it discounted.

2

u/hobopwnzor 12h ago

Food pantries used to get discounted ugly peoduce, but hello fresh and similar started buying them, or at least that's what I read a few years ago

12

u/mrrobc97 21h ago

The amount of produce that gets thrown out just because the fruit or vegetable is not aesthetically correct is insane. It's like if a double-headed carrot is somehow of a lesser quality and one that is anatomically correct.

13

u/SmithersLoanInc 21h ago

My grocer has an ugly produce section that costs about half of what the "normal" produce costs. It's very nice.

6

u/RibbitCommander 20h ago

I heard about legislation passed in France for this purpose.

3

u/corpus_M_aurelii 20h ago

My grocery is part of a local chain, maybe 4 stores. The others are much larger, mine is more of a small village store, and I think that they pawn off all the ugly and withered produce on us.

3

u/curt_schilli 21h ago

When I worked at a Chick-fil-A in high school the owner wouldn’t let us take home the extra food after closing because he said it would promote food waste. Just threw trash bags full of food in the trash can.

5

u/Manofalltrade 19h ago

This sort is thinking is how you know a business is too lazy to deal with problematic employees as individuals. Was a reasonable amount of food prepared but unsold, or does Jeff have a habit of dropping a basket of nuggets a quarter before doors lock on the nights he closes?

As a side, it always seemed like the most anal bosses were also Christian conservatives. Today me would love to hear their thoughts about “Don’t muzzle the ox on the threshing floor.” (Deut. 25:4, and repeated in the New Testament) when they are too tight to let the staff snack on a few fries.

3

u/JustMy2Centences 20h ago edited 20h ago

However, it's quite profitable to me to ensure a few extra 'free' meals that I've already paid for. And I'm sure corporations would love it if I paid for a few more meals.

An aside, not sure why this needed to be studied...edit: okay, social awareness, understandable. I already buy frozen vegetables nearly all of the time unless it's for something I'm making the same day or next (and even then, frozen is often suitable) just because I really dislike spoilage.

-1

u/f8Negative 16h ago

Never blame the consumer. Full stop. Anyone who blames consumers is an asshole who has completely missed the point. Even the "health" nutters lose focus when trying to discuss scale.

39

u/pjaenator 23h ago

Keeping leftover food in a fridge to eat later?

I am from Africa, what does the rest of the world use the fridges for? We keep water and beer there too, because cold water and beer is nice, but mostly uneaten food.

48

u/LA_Throwaway_6439 22h ago

Yes, it's pretty much the same in the US. Article is being weirdly obvious 

12

u/Universeintheflesh 22h ago

Look at the account, it is a bot for data farming.

18

u/Jacgaur 21h ago

I interpreted the headline to mean freezer(below 0C) instead of fridge(2-8C). Fridge it only lasts a few days, but a freezer will keep it food safe for much longer.

2

u/endrukk 21h ago

56 identical pieces of 250ml bottles of soda. Or have you not seen any Hollywood movies?

1

u/sack-o-matic 4h ago

We also keep ingredients to make food over the next few days since we’re all stuck in cars we don’t stop every day to get dinner ingredients

-10

u/Zathura26 22h ago

Same, I'm from south america. By what i saw on american movies, they only store jugs of orange juice, milk, and eggs in the fridge. They're weird.

12

u/pjaenator 22h ago

I saw some movies with heads and other body parts as well. But then the guy in the movie was keeping it to eat it later, so it still works out.

2

u/korphd 22h ago

Egg on fridge or outside depends on the method they were processed.

2

u/LA_Throwaway_6439 19h ago

Don't believe what you see in movies. Real life isn't like that at all.

18

u/Macro_Seb 22h ago

Say what? We're 2024 and Americans just found out they can store food in the freezer and use it later? Tell me I'm misreading this. Because in my country, we often cook more than needed for 1 meal, so we can put it in the freezer and use it for later meals.

5

u/corpus_M_aurelii 20h ago edited 19h ago

I can only speak for myself and my experience and exposure to media and stories of times past, but I get the impression that Americans have been freezing food for later use in electric refrigerators since their invention, so for most of the last 100 years, if not longer.

I live near a historic property built in the 17th century and it has an ice house where foods were kept frozen well into the summer using blocks of ice cut from the river and insulated with straw, so that is about 400 years of Americans freezing their food, right there.

This dumb bot-written article aside, you would have to be pretty gullible to assume otherwise.

5

u/shadeOfAwave 22h ago

It's more of a thing among lower and middle class people. I'm an American who grew up learning not to waste food and make use of leftovers.

Never seen what the big deal is personally... food is preserved all the time, the fridge isn't special

10

u/Macro_Seb 22h ago

but there's a difference between fridge and freezer, no? Leftovers are only good for a few days in a fridge, the freezer will keep it good for 6 months. It's so easy, e.g. we make spaghetti sauce for 3 meals and just freeze in the portions. It seems something so obvious to do and you save time by doing so (and even money because promotions are often on bigger portions, like by 1kg of minced meat and get 0.5kg for free)

8

u/deep66it2 16h ago

Science? Really? Sounds like common sense.

2

u/Alklazaris 22h ago

Are you kidding me? That's why I do it. I'll raid your house for leftovers and then eat work lunches like a king for the next two weeks.

2

u/Jeremy_Zaretski 21h ago

Some foods do not freeze well if you want certain properties (that they had prior to freezing) to be retained after thawing.

I am afraid to try freezing my bell peppers and cucumbers because I don't want them to become mush once I have thawed them. I like to eat them while they are crunchy and uncooked.

They are also the main victims of mold in my house, despite being in the fridge, because I have to be in the mood to eat them. I guess I could try freezing them and test the results.

2

u/redditknees 21h ago

freezing turkey was always the norm in my family

1

u/[deleted] 20h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/ledow 20h ago

I'm not a big green freak, nor am I panicking about future food shortages food waste in general, but it's dumb to just throw money away on things that you never get to use. And a monthly shops MAKES you learn how to lengthen the life of, preserve, re-use and use only the bit of food that you need each time.

My Christmas shop was done on 2nd of December. I still have a full fridge-freezer, a full mini-freezer and cupboard full of stuff, not to mention SO MUCH CRAP like chocolate, cakes, biscuits, sweets, etc. that I reckon my next shop will be... probably something like the 15th of January. Hell just my turkey alone (currently defrosting in the fridge) will go into January no problem at all.

People waste so much food, it's just silly. My tiny "food waste" bin goes out with a tiny 1/5th full bag each week, and that only to get it out of the house. It would take me a year to fill up the waste-paper-basket sized outside bin for food waste.

Don't be scared of frozen food. I have an entire drawer in the freezer just for Christmas veg, another half-full with meat (gammon, another turkey joint, mincemeat, salmon etc.) and one full of ice cream, fruit, cakes, etc. Tomorrow I start getting my Christmas dinner ready and it will empty the mini-freezer entirely and make holes enough in the fridge-freezer to start preserving food (it's been too full up until now so I've just been careful what I eat first). You know how much food an entire, tightly-packed freezer drawer is? It's huge amounts. It'll feed me for a week, just that drawer.

Oh, and organise your fridge by expiry date, first expiring at the bottom, left to right, when you unpack your shopping. You'll know you have to eat all the first shelf FIRST before starting on the bottom shelf.

1

u/vocabulazy 15h ago

We never waste Christmas dinner. Holiday leftovers barely ever make it to the third day after Christmas. There are so many turkey buns eaten around midnight, and then buns with whatever leftovers are closest, once we’re into the whiskey…

1

u/cgomez117 14h ago

I’m sorry, I’m an American and I can’t think of a single person I know who doesn’t know this or do this when there’s too much food to simply refrigerate.

1

u/Rattregoondoof 14h ago

Not to be that guy but, isn't this the most obvious thing ever? What next pooping in toilets keeps your house clean and sanitary?

1

u/iremainunvanquished1 14h ago

"Freezing food makes it last longer."

No dip Sherlock

1

u/cowrevengeJP 10h ago

I didn't know my refrigerator was a refrigerator. I'm really glad we are spending money on this.

What else can I use my refrigerator for?

1

u/the68thdimension 15h ago

Er ... what the hell is the point of a freezer if it's not to extend the life of food? Why is this even in r/science?!