According to research, Americans waste approximately 25 percent of the food and drinks they purchase, costing around $1,600 of wasted food a year. The King County’s “Food: Too Good to Waste Challenge” is aimed at showing consumers exactly where they waste food.

“Many people assume that they are not wasting that much and that’s the great value of going through the challenge – seeing is believing,” said Karen May, program manager of Food: Too Good to Waste. “If you actually to take the time to measure it it can be quite an eye opener.”

The goal of the challenge is to help individual consumers or families find out what they waste the most of, and Judy Beaudette, resident of Bothell and food waste participant, took the challenge and came out with leftovers.

According to Beaudette, the first red flag was that things were being forgotten.

“After a couple of weeks of being accountable for what I was wasting and actually seeing it, slowing down enough and having a process to measure it, it wasn’t something I could just put in the back of my mind anymore. It was right there infront of me…I couldn’t ignore it anymore.”

For the first two weeks, challengers collected and measured the food that would have gone into the trash. The last two weeks of the challenge, participants practiced using food waste reduction tips, such as smart shopping with a list, proper storage and more.

Not only is reducing food waste good for pocketbooks, it also impacts the environment. The less food people waste, the more natural resources are used to produce food. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the less food that is wasted, the slower our landfills fill with waste.

The average single family home wastes approximately 390 pounds of food each year. In King County, the food wasted goes into the Cedar Hills Regional Landfill – 33 percent of which is food.

Beaudette’s leftovers won’t be heading into the Cedar Hills landfill, but that’s likely the only lasting change she’ll be taking away from the challenge.

“The one change I’ve actually done, and I’m doing it today, is having leftover night. The leftovers that used to go into the trash, I’m really stopping making something new until we’ve eaten all those up,” Beaudette said. “And its kinda embarassing, … we always had leftover night, so I don’t know why I fell out of the habit of doing that. I really liked the fact that the waste program gave me the idea of leftover night.”

Whether leftovers or heads of lettuce one forgot about in the door, wasted food is not only a natural resources problem, but one that includes climate change, too. The gas used to transport, fossil fuels for plastics for packaging, or the off-gassing from the decomposition of food.

“What we really want people to be aware of is when food is wasted then all of the natural resources that went into making that food was wasted as well. Everything from the farm all the way to your plate,” May said. “We want people to be mindful that they aren’t just wasting food, there’s a lot more that went into getting the food to you in the first place.”

While Beaudette thought the challenge was great, she said she wished there were better feedback after the challenge was over. Seeing her outcomes or what the county took away from the data gathered.

According to May, the program is looking into ways that communication can continue between participants and organizers after the challenge has ended.