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.
I often cut oranges up into slices or wedges for us to eat along with our meals, and sometimes, we have a few left over. I meant to throw these into the juicer the next time I made juice, but I waited just a wee bit too long.
So, now they’re turning into dirt in my compost bin.
I do have some cilantro in my fridge that needs to be used ASAP, so I’d better apply some of my own how-to-use-up-cilantro ideas.
Hey, speaking of food waste, Jonathan Bloom just wrote a great article about why it’s particularly important not to waste meat. Go read it!
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{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
I hate to see the orange go to waste this time of year because they are so good. We have discovered cara cara oranges and are eating more fruit than ever.
That was me the other with the sad looking orange.
I’d be incredibly impressed if you manged to squeeze a morsel of juice from those babies! Bit late getting my post up today, one of those mornings, but it’s done and dusted. Just in time for me to partake in the broccoli and Stilton soup I made yesterday and is sitting in my freshly photographed fridge. Can’t stand Stilton normally (would not ever eat it normally) but as part of this soup it’s nice – bizarre!
Will be checking out the Wasted Food link. rather topical for me as I’ve just stopped eating meat, apart from one minor misdemeanour. After stirring the family’s slow cooked spag bol, I licked the fork before putting it in the dishwasher! Oops! But then again I’m a no-waste-gal to the end! (well I have eaten it for approx. 37 years plus of my life… it was going to happen)…
There was so much food waste this week I can’t even remember it all. Generally there was leftovers,meat,fruit,pudding I will never eat,and various sauces and pb that have less than a serving left and mom was saving.
I am not sure why we kept some of the things we did. It went bad before we could eat it all.
Thank you for the link to the meat waste article.
My waste week was awful. I just want to leave it behind me and move on. Better next week!!!
Boy I feel like a dummy, I was having trouble linking up, it kept saying things like “your name can’t be longer than 80″, but it wasn’t. I was about to leave a comment letting you know, in case it was something on your end, then I realized I was putting the URL in the name section and vice-versa…haha…I feel stupid!
I’m doing pretty well with the food waste thanks to my fridge list though I don’t want to tempt fate.
My struggle right now is with my bread making. I hate wasting bread, and I’ve been turning out rocks about 70% of the time. I think I ironed out the issues with my no knead Dutch Oven Bread, but not with my regular sandwich bread.
You can make french toast, bread pudding, crutons, and breadcrumbs with your bread-rocks. Maybe also Italian bread soup.
I just made bread crumbs for the first time yesterday out of a stale bread rock! I put the rock in a baggie and then whacked it many times with my favorite small cutting board. Satisfying. : ) The crumbs are going on top of macaroni and cheese tonight.
WilliamB, I also wanted to say that I always really appreciate your comments! You share a lot of interesting and useful ideas.
Pizza waste here!
I have been totally off schedule all week so I’m gonna blame our exorbitant food waste on that!
No waste for me this week. Last week I tried to use up some oranges by throwing them in a smoothie instead of the juicer and I couldn’t stand all of the pulp in the smoothie. I had to waste the smoothie. I wont be doing that again. I get lazy when it comes to the juicer because I don’t like cleaning it. On the plus side the oranges were free. A lot of my friends have orange trees so it didn’t cost me any money.
We stopped eating meat (almost entirely) months ago so we no longer have meat go bad. Plus we feel and look much better!
No waste for me this week and the fridge is pretty empty.
Tomatoes this week for me. They had a really “off” smell. Interesting piece about meat.
I think you oranges look a bit dry to salvage into anything. Still not a bad week at all. It can always be worse.
Could have been better, could have been worse!
Lots of waste for me this week. With two good weeks in a row, I knew this week was probably coming!
I had my worst week ever. In the back of the fridge, in a non-see through plastic bag, I found an entire turkey breast! (One of those rolls you buy, premade.) I put it in the fridge to thaw and then somehow forgot about it. I am just sick, as that was a lot of money to waste. Lesson learned, always use see through bags.
Just as bad as last week for me. Still hoping for better next week.
That doesn’t look so bad, Kristen. It’s not bad at all. Fruit composts quickly, and I’m sure you’ll be getting some good food out of it in turn, in just a few months. Do you think it would ruin the taste to freeze a few chunks of orange for smoothies? I’ve never tried that before.
My waste was pretty bad this week. I had to throw away a good amount of cheese, and something my hubby brought home from a work event, that was strangely titled “garlic cream.” I let that sit for a long, long time in the fridge, because I didn’t want to eat something with that title. I was sort of afraid of it. Now it’s gone, after all these months.
Barb, have you tried adding a tablespoon or so of vital wheat gluten to your loaves? My bread rises higher, and is always less dense when I add some extra gluten. It makes a huge difference. I get it at Kroger, in the baking aisle.
It was leftover pasta for me. Meh, so terrible..still disappointing
A fairly good waste week for me. I regret price matching Aldi’s strawberries at Walmart, because I can’t stand Walmart’s strawberries. Bought them on Wednesday and just tossed a rotten one today. I have been eating them quite a bit, but they are all overripe and soft. Not bad to eat in my yogurt though, but not something I will buy again. I should have known better to, as I had passed up doing that at Walmart before and I had seen some of the strawberries at Walmart that just didn’t look good.
Otherwise, I don’t think I have tossed any other food waste. But I do have some beans and rice that I need to throw into a soup soon or they will be gonners. Finished off my curried vegetable soup made from a recipe I didn’t like, and that was quite good. Do have a hunk of roasted beef in the refrigerator that wasn’t as tender as we would prefer that I need to use too. Some cheese that needs to be scraped of mold.
I need to get my compost pile on. No food waste for me this week. Next week isn’t looking so good, I forgot I’m traveling and I have a bunch of produce in the fridge. Maybe I’ll freeze it or something.
Your how to use up cilantro post is so timely! The bean, corn, cilantro salad looks great! I also have cilantro that is dying in my fridge! We just got back from vacation so I didn’t think I’d have anything to share this week. WRONG.
I’m pretty happy with my food waste since it’s only my 2nd week keeping track but your picture reminds me that I have a bunch of clementines I better eat up this week.
I had no waste this week but I bought a lot of produce and I’ll have to be very mindful of it so I don’t loose any.
Late getting around to the cleanout today–a couple of cups of an Indonesian rice dish I made last weekend (was planning to have it for dinner tonight but it smelled baaaadddd!) and about a cup of eggplant spread. In my quest away from animal protein and toward a plant-based biet, I tried making eggplant spread to use for lunches. Guess I should have followed a recipe ’cause it was nasty. Ate about half and then gave up.
I have some parsely and lettuce on the verge of being compost but still hoping to save them!
No Waste this week. We saved some grapes that could have been food waste by freezing and eating them.
MANDATORY FOOD DONATION LAWS
One in 7 people in the United States are hungry each day.
Hunger is defined as the uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of food and the exhausted condition that goes with it.
In 1997 The Department of Agriculture estimated that 96.4 billion pounds of the 356 billion pounds of edible food produced was never eaten.
Since 1997 the number of billions of pounds of thrown away food has climbed even higher.
This food is put into landfills where it decomposes producing methane gas, a major source of greenhouse gases.
We can totally eradicate hunger in the United States by redirecting this food into a hungry mouth instead.
A person totally impoverished is a person in crisis.
Humanitarian societies take care of people in crisis regardless of how that crisis came about.
We must feed our impoverished citizens.
We can feed them at no cost.
We must pass laws that mandate edible food be donated to share with the hungry.
This is recycling at it’s best.
We have now eradicated hunger and we have saved our environment.
Help us pass these laws.
Petition at Change.org please sign it.
http://www.change.org/petitions/the-president-of-the-united-states-require-all-food-establishments-to-do-food-rescue-each-day
Kathy Mitro kathymitro@yahoo.com