Your Thanksgiving leftovers are harming the planet. Here are ways to shop and cook smarter.

A major highlight of Thanksgiving is the menu, but the big meal can come with a lot of wasted food.

A major highlight of Thanksgiving is the menu, but the big meal can come with a lot of wasted food. Experts say a pinch of extra planning can ensure more gets eaten.

Roughly 320 million pounds of food will be wasted at Thanksgiving this year, according to ReFED, a nonprofit that tracks food waste. ReFED says that’s largely because people prepare more food than is needed for the meal and then don’t finish the leftovers.

“That is essentially like five meals each for all of the food insecure people in the U.S.,” said Yvette Cabrera, food waste director at Natural Resources Defense Council.

It’s also a problem because most of that waste ends up in landfills, where it releases the potent planet-warming gas methane, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. But a lot of those emissions are avoidable.

Here are some tips for a climate-smarter Thanksgiving meal without ditching tradition.