In an empty and set dining area prior to the dinner crowd in downtown Provo, Chef Chad Pritchard at Oregano’s Italian Kitchen sat down and spoke with me about my favorite topic — food.

I originally had a different agenda as I sought information from a professional on how to select the best ingredients for cooking at home (Does anyone else struggle with picking melons?). However, I instead experienced a come-to-Jesus moment. It’s one I think more than half of Americans still need to face.

While I frequently host inner debates in the grocery store aisles and at farmers market booths about which piece of produce to pick, and I know surely you do too, how often do Americans discount the imperfect looking items as unusable? At farmers markets in particular, produce can come in irregular sizes or include small blemishes that the modern-day shopper — used to shiny fruit and smooth vegetables — unconsciously turns their nose up at.

“Is it pretty?” Pritchard asked me. “Small farmers don’t have those processes. Conventional produce looks perfect — they’re grown to be shipped. They don’t care if [consumers] enjoy them. For example, tomatoes are so entrenched in our cooking that they’re not reinventing the wheel. People don’t care what tomatoes taste like; they’ll still buy it. It’s grown to look pretty. The ones grown and sold at farmers markets? The produce has cracks, they look ugly.”

According to an article published by Ohio State University based on a large-scale consumer survey about food waste, Americans throw away 80 billion pounds of food each year and only 50 percent of people are aware that it’s a problem.

“First, we can do things to chip away at the perceived benefits of wasting food,” doctoral student Danyi Qi, who co-authored the study, said in the article. “Our study shows that many people feel they derive some type of benefit by throwing food away, but many of those benefits are not real.”

Researchers in Qi’s study suggested removing “Sell by” and “Use by” dates from food packages could significantly reduce the amount of good food that is trashed.

“Only in rare circumstances is that date about food safety, but people are confused about the array of dates on food packages,” said study co-author Brian Roe, the McCormick Professor of Agricultural Marketing and Policy at The Ohio State University.

Pritchard shared numerous insightful tips on what consumers — and more specifically Utahns — can do to create delicious-tasting food that also minimizes waste.

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Vegetables will get labeled “no good” but Pritchard reiterated that they’re frequently going to get cooked anyway. People are afraid of discount bins (and I’m guilty of this myself). We waste so much food, Pritchard explained, and yet sometimes the flavor is better.

“People don’t understand that just because a piece of produce is soft and ugly doesn’t mean it’s bad.”

What do you do with those fruits and vegetables? Roast, blend, chop, blanch.

Tip: Buy what you’ll use. Americans buy a week to 10 days worth of groceries and ultimately end up chucking it. Instead, go to the store to purchase fresh fruit and vegetables two to three times a week.

Preserving

Can’t use what you bought? Preserve it. Utahns are all about canning.

“At culinary school we had peppers coming out of our ears,” Pritchard said. “I called my wife and she brought boxes of peppers home. She’d julienne the peppers, put them on sheet pans in single layers, freeze them and put in ziplock bags. Then, the peppers could be saved to put in soup and fajitas. You don’t have to can.”

Cherry tomatoes? Freeze them and then put them in a sauce.

Get outside of your comfort zone when it comes to canning. Pritchard included examples like roasting tomatoes in the oven and then putting them in a jar and filling it with olive oil, rather than canning plain stewed tomatoes.

Strawberries are in season? Buy 2 pounds and make jam, or even better — a berry compote. There are more options than the generic defaults.

Tip: Dry your abundant fresh herbs. Does your basil grow out of control in summer? Tie it up and hang it upside down. In two weeks you’ll have amazing dried basil, according to Pritchard. Basil. Sage. Lavender. They last all season.

Byproducts

Pritchard’s wife, Kimber, is the master of fully utilizing different parts of produce and potential byproducts. You’re paying for it, he said, so why not try to get the most flavor from it?

“Garbage”? Waste not! For example, shrimp shells can be used for stock for soup or turned into a powder for shrimp salt. Both of these things add flavors that truly enhance a dish or meal.

Tip: Skins and rinds of citrus can be used for their zest. So, zest! Dry it out and add to tacos or guacamole.

Chef Chad Pritchard is a classically trained French chef with a strong background in both Italian and Asian cooking. Born in Southern Alabama, and raised in Central Texas, he grew up in the restaurant scene of Austin. After finishing college, Pritchard decided to pursue his passion in the kitchen and further his culinary training by attending the Texas Culinary Academy, which would later become Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, in Austin, Texas. After working at multiple restaurants across the country, he returned to the program that he graduated from, and became a chef instructor at Le Cordon Bleu in Dallas, a position he held for two years.

After a stent as an adjunct instructor in the culinary department of Utah Valley University, Chef Pritchard purchased and acts as the Executive Chef of Oregano Italian Kitchen in Provo. Through these efforts and his desire to operate restaurants around Provo, the ultimate goal is to create a restaurant culture in the Utah Valley that rivals any other region in the country.