Be thankful for apps to reduce food waste

Thanksgiving is the day to make all your food fantasies come true.

But later, when you're stuffed with stuffing, tired of turkey and packed with pie, you may have the thought: 'What should we do with all these leftovers?”

Americans throw out about 35 million tons of food a year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and most of that goes to landfills, where it creates methane, a potent greenhouse gas. At the same time one in six Americans doesn't have a secure food source, the National Resources Defense Council reports.

Thankfully, technology innovators have created a cornucopia of apps to reduce food waste.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's FoodKeeper app provides cooking advice, expiration reminders and tips for storing food to extend its life.

'Leftovers are good in the fridge for three to four days,” said Chris Bernstein, acting director of food safety education for the USDA. 'What we recommend for the freezer is two to six months.”

In addition to the USDA's phone hotline, (888)-MP-Hotline, for food preparation and safety questions, the agency has a virtual representative, Ask Karen, with more than 1,500 FAQs, Bernstein said. Think of her as Siri with an apron.

The Food Cowboy app lets planners of large events - 250 people or more - arrange in advance to donate the food to a local service agency. Planners pay $1 per head to cover the service agency staying late or working on a weekend to pick up leftover food from holiday parties or wedding receptions.

'This allows you to know excess food isn't going to waste,” said Barbara Cohen, app co-founder, who lives outside Washington, D.C.

For smaller amounts of unconsumed food, there's LeftoverSwap, an app created in 2013 by two 25-year-olds with surplus pizza in Seattle.

'We thought about how cool it would be to alert people nearby about all this pizza,” said Dan Newman, 27.

The app, described as the Craigslist of extra food, allows users to post a photo and brief description of their leftovers. Using your phone's GPS coordinates, the site drops a pin on a map to let hungry people nearby know where they might get some free grub.

A scan of the map Wednesday showed no leftovers in Iowa, but there were two slices of carrot cake in New York, teriyaki chicken meatballs in Los Angeles, tamales in Dallas and a half pint of scotch ale in Seattle.

'We take the term leftover pretty broadly,” Newman said. 'If you have produce from your garden, you bought too much at Costco or you have too much catering, there's a big spectrum of things you can post.”

Table to Table, an Iowa City non-profit, collects edible food from restaurants, grocery stores and other donors and distributes it to services agencies that serve hungry people. The organization has rescued and distributed more than 12 million pounds of food since 1996.

Table to Table's white vans were busy Wednesday, hauling produce, bread and other food from stores including Wal-Mart, Aldi and Hy-Vee to service agencies.

Table to Table only takes food prepared in commercial kitchens, but Executive Director Bob Andrlik said people with large amounts of leftovers may be able to donate the food directly to a local agency, such as the Salvation Army.

'If you're anticipating it, call them ahead,” he said. 'The more you can hammer it out in advance can be advantageous.”

Andrlik recommends freezing leftovers immediately because that extends the life of the food you want to donate.