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.
This week, the only rotten thing in my fridge are these few pieces of lettuce. I should have put something in the picture as a point of reference, but you’ll just have to trust me when I say that this container is small! I think it holds maybe 1/2 cup or so.
Happily, lettuce is compostable, so it’s going out to my compost bin and not out to the trash can.
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Our family works very hard to have zero waste and we all like leftovers so it is easy….this week was a different story and I am sad about it, I actually have a LIST of waste. 3 inch piece of fish (Walleye) 3/4 of a pork chop, 1 piece of pizza and a lot of a new veggie pasta salad I tried, the dressing was terrible so the entire thing was thrown out:( We still have all of this waste even after eating leftovers for supper last night. I will try much harder next week.
I am rather embarrassed to admit that I wasted an avocado after all the discussion last week. It was already too far gone for me to salvage it at all. I also had to throw out some cooking oil left over from deep frying (normally I manage to reuse it at least once) and some rotten dandelion greens (which were foraged from my backyard).
A tip for keeping salad/lettuce fresher longer: put a sheet of paper towel on top before putting the lid on (works for the clam-shell salad containers too) then turn the container upside down, it helps draw the moisture from wilting the lettuce/salad.
I only wasted a little bit of the vanilla yogurt I accidentally bought! The rest went into breakfast smoothies.
We had one lemon go bad for some unknown reason, but otherwise another no-waste week at our home.
Just an idea for the future… you can toss any leafy green into your smoothies. Other than a slight color difference, you’d never know. I’ve done it with spinach, kale, agulgula, leaf lettuce and mixed greens.
Woohoo no waste this week!!!
Mainly because this time I shopped at a farmers market that you can buy items by the piece as opposed to by the bushel,peck,basket,pint.
I have no idea how much my household wasted or did not waste this week – I was gone for 90% of it. It’s a weirdly liberating feeling.
Good job, Kristen! We had a no-waste week, thanks to my husband’s disposal-like skills! Yay!
We had a 2 and 1/2 day blackout. I lost all of my milk and milk based condiments. It killed me to throw out food
i don’t think this should count as your fault.
Woot no waste this week – I work hard to have zero waste and to use up the leftovers before it goes bad.