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If you want to cut down on how much rancid milk and the number of rotten vegetables you throw out when cleaning your refrigerator, you may want consider changing how you shop for food, researchers at the University of Arizona say.
A study from Anita Bhappu, an associate professor at the UA Retailing and Consumer Sciences Program, and graduate student Torey Ligon said many Americans visit several stores in search of the best deals and generally buy groceries in bulk to last for a week or longer.
That habit leads to a large amount of food waste, they said.
"They’re making all this effort in how they buy food because they’re trying to reduce cost," Bhappu said. "But at the point that they’re doing the analysis on how much does this pound of meat or these apples cost, they’re not factoring into how much they throw out."
Upwards of 40 percent of the food grown in the United States is wasted, and much of that is avoidable, the researchers said.
Bhappu and Ligon, whose research is ongoing, said going to the grocery store several times a week and buying specifically for just a few meals can end up saving money - and it will reduce the amount of food people throw out when they clean the fridge.
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