Food Waste Friday | Ahh, that's a little better.
Every week, I post a picture of the food that has gone bad over the last seven days. Why do I do this? Because in March of 2008, I finally got fed up with the amount of food I was wasting, and I thought that showing my waste to other people would motivate me to use up my food instead of wasting it. Because this often embarrassing practice was so helpful for me, I invited other bloggers to join me in posting their food waste photos, and Food Waste Friday was born. If you're not a blogger but still want some food waste accountability, feel free to participate by leaving a comment.
I don't have a picture for you this week, but I do have to confess to composting a hairy tomato earlier in the week (it was so yucky, I didn't want to bother spending the time to take a photo before I threw it into the bucket!). For some reason, the rest of the tomatoes in that bunch were fine, but this particular one went south prematurely.
Happily, I didn't waste anything else and I'm not very over-run with leftovers at the moment. We do need to do some serious spinach-eating this week, though, or we will end up wasting some.
Fortunately, unlike lettuce, spinach can be used in a wide variety of ways, so I think I can manage this.
Edit: I found a box of OLD Cream of Wheat in my cupboard today...I bought it back before we were doing so well at not eating cereal (if I'd bought it this past winter, we'd totally have used it up), but it smelled very stale. I'm sure it would be safe to eat, but it wouldn't taste good at all.
So, I wasted a tomato and Cream of Wheat.
Oh, and for the record, I want to add that I am totally and entirely convinced that the best and most responsible thing (from a moral, financial, and environmental standpoint) is to eat every last bit of the food that we purchase. Wasting food is wasting resources and effort and energy, whether we're talking about a tomato or a cut of beef (though the beef is more of a waste since it's harder to produce than a tomato).
That said, avoiding food waste is hard work...it takes constant thought and attention to buy the right amount and use the right amount. And sometimes, even those of us who are highly inspired to avoid waste still have to throw away food that's gone bad.
Here's the thing, though...making an effort is what's important. Even if all of us only managed to cut our food waste by 50%, that would still make an enormous difference. We'd be consuming 50% fewer food-related resources and throwing away 50% less food trash.
Remember my whole "It doesn't have to be perfect to bless other people" thing? I feel the same way about food waste and perfectionism. If you wait to fight against food waste until you can be perfect and waste absolutely nothing, you'll never get started.
So, go eat some leftovers for lunch. Throw some wilty spinach into your scrambled eggs. Make some muffins with your wrinkly sweet potatoes. Cook up a pot of soup with your chicken bones.
And if you have to compost a moldy lime or you need to throw away some slimy meat, don't beat yourself up over it. It's better to compost a moldy lime than it is to compost a moldy lime AND some spinach and sweet potatoes. It's better to throw away a piece of rotten meat than it is to throw away a piece of rotten meat AND a bunch of chicken bones and leftovers.
Whatever you do, don't let perfectionism scare you into not even making an effort. I certainly haven't....if you browse through the Food Waste Friday archives, you'll see that I've had relatively few no-waste weeks (more's the pity!).
But what you will notice is that I don't often have pictures like this anymore. Or like these first food waste photo posts over on my old Blogger blog.
Yes, indeed. Progress has been made. Has perfection been reached? Nope. But I've wasted a whole lot less food in the last two years than I would have if I didn't even try.
Hmm. That turned out to be a lot longer than I meant it to be. I thought I was just going to add a little post-script and then I got all carried away!
In short, give food-waste-prevention a try, and when you have failures, don't give up or be discouraged....carry on, because less waste (even a LITTLE less waste) is a good thing no matter how you look at it.
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Kristen, Great post about food waste today. Just being more mindful has helped me reduce waste as well.
I would rather have left overs for lunch, then say a sandwich..... I usually eat left over lunch about 3-4 days a week!!!
You are such an inspiration. Thank you for all you do!!!
Mary
Very true...I can feel like I failed when I thought there was nothing we wasted and then today I found a little piece of chicken. But that was it! I've really cut down on what we throw out, and that is a great thing. Thanks!
Wonderful post, Kristen - really inspiring and uplifting. And well done on your great food waste week. One hairy tomato is pretty good 😉
Our food waste this week includes some wilted brown lettuce and a slimy pear.
Food waste is a serious issue in this country and if people just even attempted to do what you do our countries food waste would be cut drastically. Thank you for bringing this issue to your blog every week. My family was always good about eating leftovers but we have even made stronger effort to waste nothing. It's pretty easy when you have a husband who is a human garbage disposal and hates wasting food. He searches the fridge every other day and eat the leftovers or tells me what we need to get used up, it's a great team effort.
I had one little piece of produce that snuck by me too - had to waste about 2/3 of an avocado, but that was it for this week!
Kristen! Omgosh! I never realized your past food waste looked like... that! You've come SO far in such a SHORT amount of time. I feel better about not having a a bunch this week (just one lowly tomato).
But it's comforting to know that we all have to start somewhere to make a difference!
I know. It's really bad, isn't it? and that's even after I started working on the problem.
Yeah. I was a disaster when it came to food waste!
I had 2 slices of watermelon that got composted, and I haven't checked yet, but I think the cilantro needs to go. I had great intentions to make salsa this week, then we all 5 came down with a stomach bug.
Oh, and if you have spinach that needs using and you don't have a way to eat it up, just freeze it. It won't be like fresh after it is defrosted, but works great to toss in soups, eggs, etc.
Nice post, Kristen. I totally agree about perfectionism- it can be crippling and any amount is better than not even trying. Thanks for being such an inspiration, and a cheerleader.
We had no waste, yay. It's been awhile.
I also gave you my "favorite blog post of the week" for your awesome post about the ridiculousness of the Kleenex disposable bathroom towel for home use (even though it was just slightly over a week ago).
Great post! It really does make a huge difference just to make the effort to reduce waste, rather than not trying at all.
Our long stretch with no food waste ended when I threw out a bunch of cilantro earlier this week. I bought it two weeks ago for something I wasn't going to make until yesterday, and by Tuesday of this week it was gone. Cilantro just will not last for two weeks, no matter what you do.
Can I just say thank you for pointing us toward an old food waste picture. It makes me feel much better. I started reading hear about a year ago and didn't realize your food waste wasn't always like it is now. I don't feel nearly as bad about where I am now. I am doing better little by little and that is what's important.
That's so funny...I often forget that not all of you were with me from the beginning. Only a small handful of my readers have seen my most terrible food waste pictures, I guess (well, until today, that is! lol).
It took me a good six months before I had even ONE zero waste week, so take heart.
this is probably a silly question - but how do you come up with the ways to use stuff? like i wouldn't think to put wilty spinach in eggs. and what do you do with chicken bones?
i don't know how to come up with creative ways to use food on the verge of being un-edible (is that a word?).
I don't know...I guess I just wrack my brain and try to think of something. I've been cooking for a long time (since I was a preteen), so I have a basic idea of what works and what doesn't.
I often try to think of a way to cook or bake with food that has gone a little bit south, as it often disguises mushiness and has the added benefit of killing any bacteria that might be hanging around.
Soups, muffins, and scrambled eggs are good ways to use up food, and as long as you're positive the food is safe to eat, salads are also endlessly flexible.
Melissa - I think the short answer is that it takes practice. Start by finding a couple of recipes that will take most (non-fruit) foods. One I really like is a fritatta. You can put almost any meat or veg into a frittata (voice of experience: not all *combinations* of meat and veg work!). The secret trick is that the inputs should cooked and cold beforehand, so they don't weep into the eggs and make them runny. Cooking adds a couple of days to the shelf-life of the food, so you can cook the almost-bad veggies one day, and make dinner with them a day or two later.
To make the dish, mix 1-2 eggs per person in a bowl, add appropriate herbs and
a bit of salt and pepper; 1 tsp of red wine vinegar or a couple of drops of Tabasco is good also - perks up the meal without being identifiably vinegary. You can add grated cheese also. Stir in 1/2 -1 c. inputs per person. Pour into nonstick pan, cover, and cook on med-low heat till mostly set. Now either turn off the heat, and let the eggs finish cooking in the residual heat OR cover the pan with a plate, flip this over, then slide the eggs back into the pan and let finish that way. Serve as is or top with a sauce.
For fruits, save almost-bad bits in the freezer and when you get a couple of cups, throw them in the blender for a smoothie. Or throw them in the blender, freeze in cups with tongue depressers for a smoothie. Bananas can be frozen for smoothies or banana bread, either whole or squished, peeled or unpeeled.
There's a cookbook that's great for avoiding food waste, called "Half a Can of Tomato Paste" and is all recipes that use a little of this or a cup of that. I expect it's out of print but there are plenty of used copies floating around the internet.
thank you both.
william - thank you for so much information. i know very little about cooking. so this is really helpful. i'm going to look for that book.
I think you'll enjoy it. The recipes are easy to follow and I've been pleased with how the turn out. Be sure to explore not only the chapters (arranged by food) but also the index. The recipes in the chapters are focused on that chapter's food (for example, cheese), but the index tells you all the recipes that use that food.
I had another thought. I couldn't give much direction about what combinations of food and spices work because there are so many. But you have to start somewhere, right? My suggestion is to focus on a single cuisine at a time. That way you'll learn what works in, say, Italian food. Once you've absorbed that, move on to a different cuisine. Italian is a good starting place for the frugal, because it's familiar in US cuisine and there's a lot of non-meat-focused dishes.
One more thought. If you're like most of us, you're going to have some failures as you learn to cook. You may even find yourself throwing entire dishes out. This happens. Stick with it, ok? Cooking can be a lot of fun (I love it, although my sainted grandmother thought I was crazy for thinking that), frugal, creative, and usually healthier.
I blogged this morning that I didn't have any food waste this week, but when I went to make the banana bread I found that there was more almond milk left than I thought, and I decided to throw out the last cup or so rather than try to keep it. This afternoon, I am making vegetable soup which will use up some random veggies and leftovers, and some homemade stock from the freezer.
I wasted too much expensive meat this week by overcooking for my family of 2! I won't be doing that again!!
btw--I accidentally posted my link twice! Sorry!! =)
Have a blessed day!
Sara
Great post! So many people fail to take action because they are waiting until they can do it well. Even though I am working on minimizing food waste, I still have wasteful weeks, because it is hard. However, I know that my food waste is much lower than it would be if I were not making a conscience effort. As my family changes and grows, I have to change how I approach buying and using food to minimize waste. What worked last year, doesn't work this year, so I have too stay alert.
I so agree with this statement: "Whatever you do, don't let perfectionism scare you into not even making an effort." Because that is where I was at a time in my life - with many things - I wouldn't start because I didn't like how I assumed the outcome would be. I'm delivered!
I love, love, love your attitude about grace and perfectionism. It makes your blog such a delight to read and is so inspiring. I just found you a few weeks ago but I love what you have to say because it absolutely encourages me. Thank you.
I'm with you on not letting perfectionism prevent me from doing anything at all. As Voltaire said, "The perfect is the enemy of the good." Or at least it can be, if we let it. We'll never achieve perfection and we'll never achieve zero waste 100% of the time, but it's surely worth it to cut down on waste. It looks as though you've gotten so much better with practice. That's inspiring and must feel pretty good.
Only one bit of food waste this week. A lonely plum I bought at the farmers market. It went bad before I hada chance even to eat it. I would say thats the only issue with buying at the farmers market.Some of the sellers will only sell by the basket or box and that isn't necessarily the best thing for a family of two. By the piece or pound works better more times then not.
@LenciB - I'm a devout `inperfectionist' now, I had a lot of reforming to do myself! I had to learn to accept my imperfect attempts and just enjoy the process.
@WilliamB - thanks for the tip on the cookbook!
My waste this week: 1 cup fuzzy green whipping cream; small amount of leftover cooked blueberry sauce; the very dried out heel of wheat bread (crumbled it & threw it out for the birds). Q: Does the heel count as waste if the birds ate it?
I'm planning our menu for the week now, and am trying to maximize what's in the pantry & freezer. I stink at menu planning, I don't know how Kristin is so diligent with it! I have no imagination. I'd like to know where people get recipe ideas from besides cookbooks? I'm sick of my own cooking and I need some inspiration.
Kristen, kudos for a) only having one little tomato go for naught, b) writing a post that really rings true on how doing something is better than nothing and c) having a fabulous new Food Waste Friday logo! Very cool--did you make it yourself?
Nope, I didn't! I'm completely and utterly clueless when it comes to graphic design. I hired my friend Kristen of Knitting Kninja to make some graphics for me (I have one for Q&A and Wednesday Baking and Saturday Grocery/Menu as well!).
thanks for the encouragement. i have never gotten into cooking, but would really like to. and thanks for the suggestion about focusing on one culture. there is a lot of information so it's easy to get side-tracked and overwhelmed when starting out.
I think you're lucky you got to that tomato before the rest were affected - good work. You mention lettuce, and how it can be tricky - agreed, but sometimes we overlook actually cooking with lettuce. Braised lettuce hearts (butter, water/wine, a bit of salt), frozen peas and fava beans is a delicious french bistro style meal. And lettuce leaves can be used like cabbage leaves to wrap up cooked rice and spiced raw chicken mince and then steam (little Greek style dumplings). And lettuce soup with cream can be very tasty indeed (warm or chilled). Of course, it pretty hard when the lettuce is truly slimy ...