Plan ahead for holiday meals – way ahead in fact – to decrease your chances of wasting good food. Tips for ways to save food abound for a reason. In a time of excess, too much turkey is being tossed.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, Americans throw away about 204 million pounds of turkey meat after Thanksgiving. That number doesn’t even include other leftover foods like side dishes and desserts.

Check out the Guest-imator!

Save the Food offers cooks and eaters alike options for food-and-money saving tips. The latest tool is the Guest-imator, a dinner party calculator that estimates how much food you need to keep your guests full and happy. What a concept!

Visit a local farmers’ market

There are some farmers’ markets open year-round and even more open for Thanksgiving, so it’s a great time to get back out to the market. The farmers market map allows shoppers to find a market based on the neighborhood and the day they want to shop.

Choose from a wide variety of seasonal food that tastes fresh and looks beautiful on your plate, including apples, pears, cranberries, winter squash, hazelnuts, walnuts, chard, kale, leeks, beets and potatoes.

Don’t be afraid to try some creative uses for leftovers either. Leftover turkey curry or turkey breakfast tacos, anyone?

Compost what can’t be used

And when you’ve gotten everything out of your meal, add the turkey bones and any other food left to your kitchen compost container or directly in your green Portland Composts! roll cart. Get a detailed list of what goes in the green compost roll cart.