Here are some suggestions on how you can reduce holiday waste and waist:

1. Always begin your meals with a salad. That way you will fill up on nutritious foods first and will be very unlikely to overeat afterwards. This means consuming less calories and reducing food waste, and weight loss.
2. Always park farther away from the doorstep of your destination. The extra steps you take toward the entrance can have a positive impact on your health. The more you walk the more you save gas, enhance your health, and reduce your carbon footprint.
3. Drink as much water as you can. Add a few drops of lemon or mint to your water and enjoy the zing or burst of flavor.
4. Watch the buffet. Teach yourself to get small portions when invited to a buffet and do not feel like you need to taste everything. Choose a couple of your favorite dishes.
5. Avoid being sucked into cooking a plethora of holiday meals. Instead, cook fewer but nutritious meals. Also, remember that, it is safer to feel satisfied after a meal than to feel stuffed.
6. Give desert a new meaning. Instead of defining desert merely as constituting cookies, cakes, puddings and pies, how about defining it as fruit? Fruit can be attractive when artfully arranged with nuts and some chocolate.
Courtesy of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (2015). The Nutrition Source.