BUFFALO, N.Y. — Here’s some food for thought: Did you know the U.S. discards the most food in the world? The total is about 120 billion pounds a year, according to Recycling Track Systems.

March 9-15 is Food Waste Action Week. It’s a global effort to educate people on the environmental, economic and social impacts of food waste.

Lizzie Horvitz, a sustainability strategist and founder of Finch, notes that the average U.S. household discards approximately 650 pounds of food annually. She goes on to say that if food waste were its own country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, only behind China and the United States.

Horvitz says the biggest step we can take to limit our food waste is planning before we shop. She says most food waste happens because we buy with good intentions and cook with bad.

She says to have a loose weekly meal plan — such as three dinners — that will help you not forget food in the back of the fridge. She says prepping your produce the day of your purchase will pay off all week as well. And do a “capsule wardrobe,” making flexible proteins like beans, lentils, chicken, plus two carb bases and then three vegetables for the week. You can use those in different variations.

Then there’s the confusion over sell-by, best-by and expiration dates.

“Date labeling is just wildly inconsistent because there are absolutely no federal standards,” Horvitz said. “So it makes it so it causes unnecessary consumer confusion. If it looks good, if it smells okay, I generally will eat things that are past their due date.”

Composting is another option. There are a number of ways to do it, inside and outside of your home.

Then there is restaurant waste. There are ways we can help with that. Horvitz says there’s an app called Too Good to Go, which lets you buy surplus food from restaurants and grocery stores at a steep discount.