Food Waste Friday
Every week, I post a picture of the food that has gone bad over the last seven days. I started doing this in March of 2008 to help motivate myself to use up my food instead of wasting it and it's been very effective. Since it helped me so much, I invited other bloggers to join me in posting their food waste photos, and Food Waste Friday was born.
This week, I have a tiny bit of corn and black bean salad. I really should have just finished it off the last time I ate some of it. Oh well.
It doesn't look that bad in the picture, but holy moly! It smells terrible. My whole kitchen reeked after I took the picture this morning.
Do you think I can compost it? I have a lidded bin, so attracting critters is not a problem (do old stinky cooked beans attract rodents anyways??). My only hesitation is that there is a little bit of salad dressing mixed in with that, and I know fat is not good for compost. It's only a teeny smidgen, though.
Advise me!
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How did you do this week?If you blogged about your food waste, link us up by entering your info into the Mister Linky Widget below. Participants get a spot on my Food Waste blogroll for the upcoming week, so join us! You'll save money, reduce your trash output, and get a little publicity for your blog!
A small amount of oil here and there won't adversely affect your compost. BTW: On your RSS Feed this post is untitled.
Oh, thanks! I forgot to title it. Oops.
It's all fixed now.
So far this week there is nothing but I'm worried we won't finish our last bit of wedding cake! I've frozen a little but we are tired of it! How long will it last in the freezer without getting bad? Our topper is all boxed up and wrapped so hopefully it will last the one year and still be edible. This other cake is in a freezer baggie.
I would toss it in the composter; it is such a small amount.
We had alot of waste this week. Some of it was probably good, I just couldn't remember the age, so to be safe I tossed it.
This is definitely compostable. Um, what about the salad dressing made you think it wasn't?
Your food waste gave me an idea for a dish. I have a new pressure cooker - my old one was older than I am, complete with rocker to "moderate" the pressure - and am experimenting with beans. I also have canned corn in the pantry and small shrimp in the fridge. I see beans, corn, shrimp with the sharp zest of a sherry wine vinegar dressing.
It was the fat in the dressing that gave me pause. I know you're not supposed to put oil into compost.
The bean/corn/cilantro combination IS really awesome! I just didn't manage to eat it all fast enough! lol
Could you rinse the dressing off the beans and corn? I always rinse and drain my beans out of a can; this would kind of be the same thing. I don't compost though (tiny apartment with no outdoor space) so I'm not sure of the ins and outs of it.
Kristen,
To pour an entire bottle of oil into your compost would probably be a bad idea, but such a small amount is fine. I used to be very finicky about what went into my compost, but have loosened up lately and have no noticed no difference whatsoever. The worms love it all!
Gag -- the smell of beans gone bad is beyond revolting. I feel your pain.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."
No fat in compost? Gee, if you leave out meat, dairy, eggs, fat, grains, starches... there's nothing left but carrot tops and melon rinds. ;>
Seriously, what is the source of your information? I ask because it's a lot more restrictive than my sources (available when I get home to my bookmarks) and I want to compare.
I wonder along with WilliamB why you have quite restrictive ideas about what can go into compost?
To be honest, anything that decomposes fairly fast (ie. within a year) goes into my compost. I have a closed bin, and even though we have a dog, the occasional bone/chicken skin goes in there (dogs can also only have so much fat!). We put used serviettes and paper towels in there too and any kitchen waste that can't go in the rubbish/recycling. Right now I have some very happy potato plants growing in stacked tyres (limited planting space available) in that very compost I've made over the last year - and the interesting thing is that the only things that went in the compost bin that didn't decompose very well were some corn cobs and egg shells. I don't care too much about that, though, because I just crush it up as I put it on the garden.
Hmm, I must have been fed misinformation! All my composting ideas are stuff I've picked up on various blogs, so I can't point you to one source.
I thought you needed a special composter to take care of bones and meat. Is that right? I thought fats were a no-no as well. I do put some starches in, but really, I have very little waste in the way of starches. Is dairy bad for compost? Set me straight here!
I do put in paper products (esp. shredded paper), crushed egg shells, pretty much any produce related scrap under the sun, hair from hair cuts, and the odd starchy bit of waste.
I'd compost it. No biggie!
No waste for us this week- yay!
I'm sorry you had that bit of waste, but I'm glad for the reminder of that yummy salad. I've been meaning to make it...
No food waste for us! We were taking part in a local love food hate waste challenge, so that kept me on my toes!
What did you decide to do with your waste in the end, Kristen?
Everything composts eventually. The question is, how long do you want to wait? When someone tells me "Do X" or "Don't do Y" I ask "Why?" If they don't know, then it's merely unsubstantiated hearsay. Maybe the someone is right, maybe not, but I have no way to tell. So rather than - wait, too late, - so in addition to telling you that you can compost these things, I send you sources for further information.
http://www.mastercomposter.com/
This is the world's most useful composting site. I spent about a year delving deep into how to compost, ending up with three bins of a cubic yard each, curb-diving for other people's grass clippings and stopping just about every day at a Starbuck's for a garbagebag full of coffee grounds. Master Composter is the best site I found, with the highest percentage of useful information, arranged in a way that a normal person can follow. There's some actual science here.
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/soil/
The other place I adore (now from a distance, it became a hideous timesink) is the Soil, Compost and Mulch forum of the Gardenweb. They're an awesome bunch people - helpful, friendly, knowledgeable. And drama-free. There is unsubstantiated hearsay here, but also a lot of collective experience and posters are usually good about specifying under what conditions doing "X" worked for them. Read the FAQs first.
I'm also ready and willing to answer questions, supporting my statements with the science as I understand it.
I did pretty well. I threw out about a half a cup of peanut sauce (that I really should've used, but just didn't get around to it), and two tortillas (also that shouldn't have been wasted).