Food Waste Friday | It's bad with a capital B.
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.
This photo will make you feel like you're reading vintage Frugal Girl, in a very not-charming sort of way.
From the top:
Cheese
Pineapple
Chicken
Tortellini
Spinach
Potatoes
Plus, I lost an avocado earlier in the week.
Dear heavens.
The good news is that my fridge is now thoroughly cleaned out and organized, and I have Pyrex containers at my disposal again.
I was getting a little low.
I haven't done a fridge overhaul in several weeks, and I didn't realize how much my disorganized, dirty fridge was bothering me until I got it nicely cleaned up.
Yay for fresh starts, I say.
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Today's 365 post: LBJ's been to the spray-tan salon
Joshua's 365 post: Nautical
Okay so it doesn't look great on the waste front, but you've done the overhaul which I suspect will mean a good week next? It'll even itself out I'm sure!
My Fridge has never been photographed so sparse (I don't think?) since starting my Friday routine and of course participating in FWF. In fact after commenting the other day here about my minimalist approach to storing food, it ignited new enthusiasm and I'm now working my way through anything else that could potentially be used up (freezer and storecupboard). Looking like a economical week coming up on the groceries - just basic supplies required!
Oh oh, I have found some uneaten Birthday cake, disguised far too well. It isn't actually mine, I made the cake for my Nephew, then we got quite a bit back. Regardless, I reckon it's way to dry to eat... and I was doing so well? Gonna have to amend my food waste post I reckon. Boo.
I just moved into a shared house. It is lovely and large, and I have a beautiful room and bath, with a sunporch to use as a living/work room. But my predecessor was a college student who did not clean out his share of the refrigerator before he left. Oh, my, yes. I volunteered to clean it. Three large containers of cooked food that was WAY past edible stage. I did all right with it until I was closing the plastic trash bag into which I had thrown the bad food. The backflash got me...uurrgghh...
I had to do the same thing with mine. I had so much stuffed in there just placed any old where and could not even see half of what I had. Thankfully I did not have as much food waste, but did have a little more then I usually do. My whole kitchen is getting an overhaul today.
Let's hear it for a cleaned out fridge! I had about the same amount of food waste a couple of weeks ago. Sometimes it just happens. I LOVE your honesty, Kristin! :)!
My food waste from recently purchased food wasn't bad but since starting this Food Waste Friday venture I hadn't cleaned out the pantry. Yikes! Lots of expired stuff that had been sitting there for who knows how long!
My new latest pet peeve: Buying fruit that looks good, then tasting it at home only to find out it's icky. Wasted money, wasted food. 🙁
I hate that too!
Somehow, even though my fridge is also incredibly cluttered, I ended up with no waste. We're on a strict no-grocery-shopping moratorium until this fridge situation gets cleared up!
Rats! Don't worry, everybody has a bad week once in a while and you 'found' all of your containers C:
I've got scalloped potatoes on my blog today that will totally make you feel better.
A Whole pack of bacon in the bin. £3 of a meat that is a treat for me and I let it go bad. I honestly could cry.
However, I did manage to eat about 35 radishes by myself this week which went out of date on 30th April. Bit fed up of radishes now though!!
Don't beat yourself up about the waste this week FG. Most people throw that amount of food away every week.
That's a serious fridge clean-out! Usually when stuff goes bad in our fridge, it is by ones and twos. Then the trash gets this powerful odor. Nasty all around.
SIL gave us some brownies that had a peanut butter/cream cheese topping - she hadn't stored them in the fridge, they were moldy. How can you not notice you are giving someone moldy food?? Went straight to the compost pile
Grandma gave us some hummus that someone had given to her and she didn't like it- we decided to just toss it because really- two people already ate it, one of which we don't even know, seemed really icky to think about, did they double dip?
Aldi onions that lasted about a week after purchasing
Only by dint of hard work and good luck have I avoided the same fate these past few weeks. I've had many guest dinners and somehow the sides and veggies built up but the main dishes were lacking. My 2c. TellFresh were in such high demand that I was hand washing each one as it emptied.
So even though my fridge seemed stuffed I still needed to shop and cook. And there's a farmer's market on my commute. Fresh carrots, baby bok choi, salsa fresca and salsa picante, ...
I've been sorting through all along but yesterday I got ferocious. Not just the cooking (see yesterday's comment for the list) but reorganizing and repacking as well. My handsome serving bowls are not very efficient. Now everything's in labeled TellFresh, the freezer surveyed for food I stuffed in to keep from rotting, and a new cooking list made to use up that stuff.
And guess what I have to use up? ... drumroll ... cilantro!
Crud - Kristen, I double posted by accident. Could you maybe delete?
Only by dint of hard work and good luck have I avoided the same fate these past few weeks. I've had many guest dinners and somehow the sides and veggies built up but the main dishes were lacking. My 2c. TellFresh were in such high demand that I was hand washing each one as it emptied.
So even though my fridge seemed stuffed I still needed to shop and cook. And there's a farmer's market on my commute. Fresh carrots, baby bok choi, salsa fresca and salsa picante, ...
I've been sorting through all along but yesterday I got ferocious. Not just the cooking (see yesterday's comment for the list) but reorganizing and repacking as well. My handsome serving bowls are not very efficient. Now everything's in labeled TellFresh, the freezer surveyed for food I stuffed in to keep from rotting, and a new cooking list made to use up those foods.
The amazing thing? My only waste was a few sweet pepper strips.
Yes...that was the situation with my Pyrex too. I could hardly manage to find any to pack Mr. FG's lunch in.
I like the photo of the clean sparkly dishes in this post. 🙂 It always feels so good to have your house nice and neat. Mine is still quite messy this morning, so I have a lot of work to do. Hope you have a nice Friday. Hugs. Juli
I think every once in a while we all have a large amount of waste, then things are better for a while.
Gotta love Pyrex though!
Well that definitely helps the rest of us feel better. I cleaned out a lot of condiments so my fridge looks much better. Unfortunately I didn't do much cooking this week so we ate out more, less waste but not really better for us.
I'm going to be throwing out some food today: canned chow mein, which tasted SO BAD I couldn't finish it (I've gotten used to fresh food at a very nice Chinese restaurant and can't eat that canned stuff any more), some snap beans that I really thought I'd use up quickly and a bunch of small bottles of old (oh, lord, very old) salad dressing.
I am getting more used to tossing leftovers in the freezer. I know I'm not always going to eat them the next day. Less waste = good!
I let a portion of leftover Frankfurter Crown Casserole sit in my fridge until it was gray and smelly.
I didn't take a picture of mine, but I definitely had some! I don't usually gather it all up at once, either--and sometimes DH tosses it before I get to it!
I'm usually pretty good about not wasting food, but we recently joined Costco and it's taking some getting used to. Recently we bought a giant chunk of cream cheese there - I thought it would be no problem to use it up since I use it in place of ricotta in lasagna - plus the thing had an expiration date in June. BUT - it developed a horrible moldy taste only a week or two after opening it! Not sure what that was about, because I've literally had open cream cheese in the fridge that has lasted for months. Oh well... fortunately it coincided with my decision to eat less cheese in general so it's not a horrible loss, but it still bothers me.
Costco will absolutely take it back, with no hassle. You don't even need the receipt, Costco will look it up on your card history.
This is why I get really cranky when people change their mind about purchasing something and don't put it back where it came from. Can't say for sure, but it could be what happened to yours.
Surplus cucumbers rescued in the nick of time here!
I lost some lunch meat, a few apples and half a burrito. I really wish I could've saved them, but alas, with no fridge in our hotel room they were bound to spoil. This week we're on vacation, and having a great time! I'm glad the food waste has only been somewhat minimal.
This isn't a perfect solution but the hotel ice bucket offers some options. Wrap the food in the plastic bag included for ice, then stick it in the ice bucket to keep cold.
Why yes, I did once live in a hotel room for a week, not wanting to pay $10/day for a fridge.
I'm sure this week will be much better, Kristen! I understand the angst you may feel in missing your Pyrex. I have only two, and when they are occupied I don't know what to do with myself. Same with our three little reusable ziplock bags. That is great that you have your wonderful containers waiting and ready to go again!
I'm sure this week will be much better, Kristen! I understand the angst you may feel in missing your Pyrex. I have only two, and when they are occupied I don't know what to do with myself. Same with our three little reusable ziplock bags. That is great that you have your wonderful containers waiting and ready to go again!
This week I think we did fairly good. There was a slice and a half of provolone cheese. Weird that there was green mold on the sliced cheese, on one and a half of the slices, but no further. There was an apple that we had to cut around a large bad spot. But used what we could to make apple pancakes. Used my bananas to make banana bread. I think the 2 lbs. of strawberries I bought, there was only one strawberry that was tossed, and the rest has about ten strawberries left. Have been having a harder time finding apples and lettuce that look good at the grocery store, so tossing a few more outer lettuce leaves. Did toss one yogurt that was sliced on the side, and I don't know if it was like that at the grocery store, but can't imagine how it could happen between the grocery store and me unloading the groceries. Had one cracked egg in a dozen we just started, but transferred the eggs to the carton we just finished, then poured the egg from the open egg into the bowl we were using and used it in the recipe. So hopefully my son then used any of the wet eggs next in the recipe and hopefully the ones that are left are in good shape. But we probably have about 9 eggsish left, so useable soon. Probably tomorrow for an egg crockpot dish for dinner. IF I had 12 eggs, would do the larger version, but will just do the 6 egg version tomorrow. What do you do with a tablespoon or two of cooked rice? I also have my chicken mole sauce that wasn't quite right. May have to do burrito taco night again this week, but my family doesn't help me eat the mole sauce. Same with the chinese leftovers that I just finished. They don't help sometimes. *sigh*
In my house cooked rice can be added to almost anything of a muffin/pancake/waffle nature or it goes into a freezer bag with the other tablespoon size bits of ingredients for an eventual chicken rice type soup. I like it reheated with milk and a little honey or similar for breakfast in winter. You could also mash it with some of the liquid in almost anything to be thickened to lose the individual grain texture. It might not be enough thickening on it's own, but it won't be wasted.
Sadly, my fridge is in need of a serious deep clean and i'm avoiding it today as I don't want to be sick to my stomach looking at my own stack of wasted items. Should do it though so I can move on with a clean slate for a new week. We had been doing sooo well lately. 🙁
Oo! I need to do this today...I will def. have a bad pile up of something too! First I know some bad green beans and garlic will be at the top (we kept saving them for eachother!) too bad! And 2nd, 2 cups of white rice, and maybe 2cups of tuna...
I usually have my weekly leftover "clean-out" on Thursdays.....it's a mishmash of everything left over from suppers all week! During the week, though, I will eat leftovers for lunch so that decreases the amount of containers that get pushed to the back of the fridge all week LOL!
GMom
I actually found your vlog accidentally and i love the Frugal Friday segment. Im from Manila, Philippines