50% since 1974. Dear me.
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.
What's the 50%?
That's the percentage by which America's food waste has grown since 1974.
Good heavens. That span of years is only a little more than my lifetime.
On the one hand, that's discouraging, but then on the other hand, if we've only been this terrible about food waste for 35+ years, the damage can't be permanent. We can un-learn what we've learned, and undo the habits we've fallen into.
I found that little factoid in an article called 18 Little Known Facts That Will Motivate You to Cut Back on Food Waste. Go read it if your motivation tank has been a little low.
Speaking of motivation...I had an epic food waste fail this week, but not for lack of motivation. I was making a smoothie and decided to throw in two wrinkly strawberry halves. I also added a slightly overripe avocado (even my avocado hating kids don't mind that), and I was all pleased with myself.
That is, until I tasted it.
Somehow, those two wrinkly strawberries infused the whole entire blender-ful of smoothie with a nasty, rotten strawberry flavor.
It was so bad, we had to dump the whole batch out.
I really, really should have just composted those two strawberry halves because instead of that, I ended up wasting yogurt, bananas, an avocado, and some frozen berries. Hindsight is indeed 20/20.
Note to self: err on the side of caution. Or at least taste something before you throw it in the blender.
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Today's 365 post: I just love little containers.
Joshua's 365 post: Big Sky
I lost a couple of tomatoes that went bad before we used them. However, we made spaghetti sauce and salsa with the rest. Also, we found the source of our bad smell--a rotten potato. We were glad to get it out of the house.
Too bad about the smoothie, but it's a good reminder of "When it doubt, throw it out. (or compost it.)"
Oh no, I had a similar failure to your smoothie. I was patting myself on the back for a week of zero food waste, while cooking up some apples and berries on the stove to make a compote. Then I got caught up reading other blogs, forgot about it and let the bottom burn 🙁 I managed to salvage some fruit from the top, but the rest had to go into the bin 🙁
Oh well, I guess I can't do everything well 🙂
Bad luck with the bad stawberry smoothie! This week it's carrot issues AGAIN here!
This must have been the week of smoothies gone bad! I made a smoothie this week and heard a weird noise come from the blender. Nothing seemed amiss so I poured the blended smoothie into a glass and drank a little and it was good. Then I went to work cleaning up the blender and noticed a big hunk og glass chipped out of th inside! Apparently that was the noise I heard! Needless to say, the remaining 3/4th of that smoothie went down the drain and the blender went into the trash. The blender was about 50 years old so I don't mind tossing it - I felt bad about the smoothie, though!!!!
The other day I had fresh organic spinach in my blendar for my green smoothie. I threw in a bag of blueberries without tasting. Yuck, they must have been rotten. I wasted all that good organic spinach. I tried to drink it, but it was rotten. I hate wasting food as well.
Well, I don't necessarily do the whole food waste Friday... mostly because I clean out my fridge on Mondays. LOL BUT, I have been watching and it's been something I've been watching for a while... I just hate to waste things! We try to eat and use anything that we can and anything we can't, we try to recycle, compost, or pass on. And of course, it isn't just for food but other things. But I have been finding myself being even more cautious with food. Which to some extent hasn't been as great for my waistline. HA! Anyways, to get to the point of what I'm writing, I wanted to ask you how has trying to be more frugal with food affected you in other ways? I've noticed that now that Summer is winding down, I am less apt to buy fresh fruits and veggies because they always seem to go bad before I can use them. I'd say it is because they are starting to move out of season. It seems to stand more true for bananas and berries for us, but we rarely waste bananas... bananas get eaten like candy around here! But too often in the last two weeks, I'm having the same issues with random fruit like strawberries and *gasp* peaches which ARE in season! At least to my knowledge they are. Anyways, so I was wondering how it affects you and if it does? Thanks!
Hi Kristen,
Put me in the bad smoothie group. I also had a few iffy strawberries and a banana that had seen better days. I did drink it. Had a bit of a sharp taste so I was lucky. I also had a peach that was spotty. Cut around the bad stuff and thought all was okay. Until I took a bite. Ugh! Tossed it.
Patti
I did a major clean out of the pantry early this week and discovered an entire loaf of whole wheat bread, wedged between the shelving unit and the wall, about a month old, covered with mold. Must've been knocked off a shelf.
Note to self -- keep pantry tidier, so this sort of thing won't go unnoticed again.
I tried adding the strawberries I'd frozen to a smoothie one time. I couldn't figure out why the smoothie tasted so bad, until I realized I'd put in the blobs of tomato paste I'd frozen and put in a very similar container. Fail. But it makes for a funny story!
Oh my goodness...that would be disgusting!
Laughing out loud on that one! I hope I don't do that. I have frozen strawberry slices for my first time this year. 🙂
Not a terrible week, not a great one but am just glad to finally have enough things organized at once to allow me to post a FWF post again!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Our food waste this week was from our recent trip, so not too bad for 2 weeks worth. There were 3 sandwich rolls, a wedge of brie cheese and 1 serving of cheeseburger macaroni.
That's a really good article, Kristin, although kind of scary. Thanks for posting the link.
Sad week this week, but I'm going to turn it around in the coming week!
4 poor little mushrooms to report. Oh dear! :o(
That statistic is both grim and inspirational. Since reading your blog (and finally experiencing living on my own and being in charge of all meals and cooking) I have become acutely aware of how easy it is to waste food. This week I had one leftover piece of liver that I wasted...I really enjoy liver but it does not make the most appetizing leftovers, which I always know and yet somehow never plan well for. I think I need to start freezing more food. I also had a batch of bone broth that didn't gel as it should, but I haven't tasted it yet so I'm not sure if the flavor was impacted.
No waste for us this week! Yay!
I did fine with refrigerator waste this week, although I have some beans in there that need to be eaten ASAP. The article did make me realize that the bolted greens I cleaned out of the greenhouse this week are also waste, even though I compost them. Thought I was getting better at planting just the amount of salad greens we could consume (hard to preserve those) but they got away from me during a week when I was sick followed by a week away.
Terrible week at ChezWilliamB:
* One third of a watermelon. I should have paid attention to my doubts about whether it really passed the knock test, instead of thinking about how tasty a good watermelon is. This one wasn't good and went bad quickly. Financial hit was about $2 but I'm still not happy.
* Half pound of bean sprouts. I don't know if it's because vinegarized watermelon juice dripped into the veggie drawer or if they went bad on their own in just a couple days (my money's on the watermelon) but they're mushy. Financial hit less than $1 but I'm still not happy.
* Not morally responsible for: the take-out container of Hot and Sour Soup. By taking it home I did salvage the container.
Food save of the week:
I arrived late to the company picnic, which was already well endowed with desserts, so my choc chip banana bread wasn't eaten. Gave half to a friend to take to his work, the other half frozen for later use.
Bummer about the strawberry smoothie. I hate when I ruin perfectly good food with spoiled food. It happens to me more often than I'd like to admit.
We had several limes to throw away, which is a shame since they wouldn't have been that hard to use. Oh well. I should learn not to buy the giant bags of limes at Sam's Club.
Wasted Food is Bad
BUT better to waste a
Blender full of Smoothies
Than the Family get Sick.
That was Understandable waste.
I thru out 5 Eggs bcuz I didn't
Check each egg separately. I just kept adding
Eggs & wouldn't you know it the Last Egg was Bad 🙁
So I had to thro out All 5 ! :((
What a pity! I know I should crack each egg separately but it's been so long one was bad that I stopped doing it. Must Remember To Use Proper Technique.
I haven't checked in quite some time. But want to make sure I try to do so because admitting my waste here kept me on track. Its been a good week so far the only thing wasted was some blueberries that really were in the frig too long and we forgot about them. Other than that no other waste.
Not our best week. Next week, I am shooting for two things or less! I need to look up some recipes for the food in my garden to keep me on track!
We actually saved some food from being wated this week. One of the sleeps way camps in our area dropped some trays of leftover food off at our church the other day. Our pastor suggested we take some home with us last night. So after spending most of our day setting up for the church rummage sale (a big event in our town) we had leftover pizza and pasta salad for dinner. A win win situation.
On another note..avocado smoothie? I've tried a few times to make them and I just can't get used it. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. What do you put with it?
I ended up throwing away about 4 or 5 pounds of potatoes. I overbought, and they did not make it. I pulled out a lot of them that were not so pretty but fine inside. I may have been able to get more, but when I hit the mayonnaise-like substance, I quit. I scrubbed the good ones and boiled them (the water was a little icky) and made a ton of potato salad that will last me all week. Fortunately, this was the first thing I have had go bad since I moved out on my own 6 weeks ago.
No food waste for me this week. I've started freezing bread, buns, leftover chili, and bananas to name a few, so I do have more time to use up things before they go bad. And I eat leftovers like crazy, because I like leftovers. More often than not, the leftover food tastes better than the original "fresh" version because the flavors have time to marry together.
So food waste isn't an issue for me. It's the other waste that is. I seem to be using paper-towels at an exponential rate. They're wasteful, expensive, and seemingly unnecessary ... but how can I kick the habit? Any suggestions?
I don't buy Paper Products anymore, But for
T-Paper & Kleenix tissues ....
"¢ I use Reuseable Rags
( Old T-Shirts, Old Towels, Socks w- Holes, etc)
For Cleaning & Spills.
"¢i use Reuseable Cloth Napkins & Cute
little Kitchen Dish Rags (from $ Tree) for Lunch or
Dinner if no Company over. They 12" x 12"
I use 1 per Day Unless It gets messy. I usually
Fold in 1/2 & use other side.
"¢I don't buy Paper Plates, not even for Parties
I use Reuseable dinner & Snack/Dessert
Plates (buffet plates from COST PLUS World Market)
They are White & Go with everything 😉
Sometimes T-Shirts Can't go to Goodwill so Cut them
Up & Clean with them I hv a Clean Rag Basket & a Dirty basket
So there's always Rags within reach just outside the kitchen door.
I wash them dry them & toss into the Basket I never spend time folding them 😉 hope this Helps w- some ideas 😉
KEEP it GREEN, SIMPLE & FRUGAL !
We switched to cloth napkins and using dish towels for all our cleaning. Microfiber cleans great. I find sometimes that the microfiber towels aren't as absorbent as I would like so I have regular ones as well. Some days I washable bunch but the physical amount of all the towels i might wash is about the size of an extra bath towel (in case you have a concern about increased laundry). Also I use a vinegar solution to clean most surfaces in the house so I'm not concerned about chemicals in with the clothes. I haven't bought paper towels or napkins in almost 2 years and I couldn't imagine doing it for any reason again. Good luck finding what works for you 🙂
For me the trick is to have plenty on hand so there's always some ready to use. Using cloth napkins and kitchen towels has greatly reduced my paper towel use.
I use cloth napkins at the table, washing them only when stained or have actual food on them.
I have kitchen towels for hand drying, surface wiping, and other "clean" uses. When the "clean use" kitchen towels are a bit dirtier I use them for "dirty" uses, such as wiping spills from the floor. Some folk use rags or a separate set of towels.
Buy the "choose your size" paper towels, most uses don't need a full sheet. Finally ask yourself, do I need that many towels to do this job? Most people I know (cough*mom*cough) use 2-3 towels when one will do.
I need to use less paper towels too, but when it comes to cleaning up after my cat, using a reusable wash rag just sounds revolting to me. I think I will always keep paper towels and ziplock style bags around, but will try and reduce my usage.
Yeah, I have a cat, too. And sometimes she coughs up hairballs. So I think I'll continue to use paper towels for her messes. But the other suggestions sound great. I have dish towels already, but I use them solely for drying dishes. And I have a really old one that I only use to cover my dough as it rises, lol. I think I'll cut up some old shirts, because I have plenty and use those for what I would use paper towels for. And I've been thinking of switching to cloth napkins for awhile. Target has some for pretty cheap, if I couldn't find some elsewhere. Thanks everyone!
No waste this week but I have the aftermath of a BBQ to eat myself through before I loose any leftovers.
Happy to report no waste this week! 🙂
I feel a little bad about my waste this week. There was some bananas you see that were overripe and I was going to get around to making some banana bread. Honest. But well, when I saw that one of the bananas was opened and actively dripping on my counter, I tossed the 5 banana bunch. Other waste was mainly a little bit of blueberries, spinach and strawberries as I picked through to eat what was good. Seems strawberries are getting more iffy at the store, so not sure how much I will be buying now. I so want to make some strawberry freezer jam, as I have seen how easy it supposedly is online and so want to try it. But am nervous about buying strawberries with how quickly these were soft and moldy this week. I bought 2 pounds of strawberries, and I go through about a pound of strawberries in 2 or 3 days. So it isn't like they sit around long.
This is my first time posting on food waste Friday! Haha, but this week is not my first time wasting food. Anyway this week I wasted a beautiful huge tomato. I went to cut into it for a salad and it had a caterpillar inside. Into the compost it went. Also wasted about a half cup of caramelized onions that I had planned to use on pizza. It was so hot all week I couldn't bring myself to turn on the oven.
bad week for me, battling a tummy issue..that meant too much got tossed. I found a whole pint of homemade soup I missed completely, 1/2 jar pizza sauce, 1/2 jar spaghetti sauce. I am thinking I should just do homemade using small cans of tomato sauce. Does anyone know if I can freeze those after I open them? Not necessarily in the jar but if I use 1/2 jar of pizza sauce can I throw the rest in a baggie and freeze it? I will assume so because I freeze leftover spaghetti all the time.
It is difficult switching from feeding 4, then 3 to 2. That is where my waste is coming from.
Hello,
I saw your cute button on another blog and followed the trail..
Super idea, we've got much better over the years but there's always room for improvement. Lovely blog, I'm going to have a good read.
Have a lovely day x
eBay has Cloth Napkins Cheap I use the
Polyester ones then wash & Dry Great !!!!
I think I paid $15- for 12 & got free shipping.
I hv cotton 1's but they Wrinkle up then need
ironing 🙁
I also just use CUTE lil'Dish rags from $ Tree 2/$1-
They shrink, BUT a Great Everyday size !
Hopes this Helps Y'all