DWANE BROWN, HOST:

Americans waste more than a third of the food that's available to them. Dzung Lewis hosts the YouTube cooking channel Honeysuckle and has some suggestions.

DZUNG LEWIS: Just being more resourceful with what you have, I think, and being creative with what you have is a skill that I think a lot of us kind of underutilize.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Lewis says it's about more than just eating all your leftovers. It's about other choices we make.

LEWIS: If you're doing a recipe that requires a lemon and you don't have one, substitute it with an acid that you already have in the pantry like vinegar, because it kind of does the same thing. It may not have the same, like, flavor profile. But more than not, it works.

BROWN: Lewis says we should also use more of the vegetables we buy.

LEWIS: For example, broccoli. People end up using just the crowns, where the stem is perfectly edible, too. Same with carrot - if you buy them at the farmer's market, you typically get carrot tops. But those make a wonderful stir fry.

FADEL: Another way to cut vegetable waste, give them a second life by pickling them.

LEWIS: If they don't look perfect, you end up thinking they're not good. But pickling them is such an ancient way of preserving vegetables that we in modern day don't think about. And that's something that I've started doing a lot more in my kitchen.

BROWN: Emmy Cho hosts the YouTube channel Emmymade. She says keeping track of what's in your fridge can also help.

EMMY CHO: Simply labeling what it is that's there, I can say, oh, I've got rice. I've got onions. I've got a little bit of leftover chicken. I'm going to make fried rice. Or - just because I can get a really quick assessment of what is there.

FADEL: Cho says time spent in Japan and a smaller refrigerator suggested a new way to think about food prep.

CHO: It's more like, what are we going to have for dinner today? And then you go buy those ingredients rather than, what do I have in the refrigerator?

BROWN: Food for thought.