Food Waste Friday...
I don't even know if I can show my face around these parts for a few days, I'm so embarrassed about my food waste this week. In my defense, only about .01% of this waste is from this week...the rest are leftovers from the days when I used to be Her Eminence, The Queen Of Food Wasters. You see, I cleaned out my freezer today, and not just the above-the-fridge freezer.
Yup, I delved into my chest freezer(aka The Largest Freezer Known To Man). It's a cavernous freezer, equipped with exactly 0 storage shelves and racks, which means that it's very easy to lose stuff in the bottom of it(especially if you are The Queen Of Food Wasters). As you can well imagine, I had no small haul after cleaning it today.
See?
Um, at least I'm using my old laundry basket, right?
All of this food was probably safe to eat, since it had been frozen, but none of it would have been remotely tasty. I suppose if I was starving, I'd have had sufficient motivation to eat it all, but seeing as I'm not near starving yet, I didn't want to eat a bunch of freezer burnt food(I doubt my family would have been tickled with the idea either).
At least I have a clean slate now, though...for the first time in a very long time, I know exactly what's in both of my freezers, and all of the food stored in them is edible and fresh. And while I'm not terribly happy about throwing this much food away, given how much progress I've made in my battle against food waste, I'm confident that there will be very little freezer burnt food in my future.
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How did you do? If you blogged about your food waste this week, use the Mr. Linky widget below to share your post with us! Remember to leave a direct link to your food waste post, so we won't have to spend time poking around your blog searching for the right post.
And don't forget that participating in the Food Waste Mr. Linky will get you a spot on my blogroll for a week. 😀
I also had food waste to report for the first time since the early weeks of this challenge. I posted that although I am not happy about it, my chickens seemed to love every bit of it. Now if only your pink basket could make it to my house my chickens would be in heaven! 🙂
Kristen, I cleaned out my frig, freezer and pantry...too much to take a picture of 🙁 However; I made a list for my freezer & pantry attached it to the door and now; I know what items are left and how can I use it for menu planning. You have inspired me to be very frugal...THANK YOU!! You were just the "kick-in-the-pants" I needed to make this work!!
I'm guilty of losing things in a freezer too. We bought a chest freezer just because I was afraid I'd lose things on the bottom of a chest. I still forget I have some things, but it's not as bad as it could be! Sometime in the last few months I've seen a suggestion of using plastic milk crates in a chest freezer. Each crate designated for a different category of food - one for veggies, one for breads, one for meats, etc. You could categorize things to fit your needs and it might make it easier to keep track of what you have.
Ha! We like to call our freezer the "serial-killer" size since you could very easily stack bodies in there or something.
No, don't send the police my way, my parents had a catering business back in the day and now we share that space with our neighbor and my grandmother so it's always filled with food. 😉
Happy Easter to you and your family, Kristen!
Is everything okay in FrugalGirl world - no grocery post over the weekend or today?
Jenny, that's so sweet of you to notice! I feel loved. 🙂
I had a very, very busy Easter weekend(I think I was home for all of about three hours, excepting the hours I slept!), and also, I found out on Saturday that my cousin was one of the U.S. soldiers that died in the suicide attack in Iraq on Good Friday. So, even if I'd had the time, I don't think I'd have been in the mood to post.
I do have a post just about ready to go for today, though.
Kristen-
I'm so sorry to hear about your cousin.
I'm so sorry to hear about your cousin. I will keep him, and your whole family, in my prayers.
I love what you are doing.!! You are a fully realized Christain. He would want us to be responsible with all the blessings given to us. I feel some what emotional about the thought that you are a rare Christian woman. I wish Gods blessings were well thought out as you seem to have displayed. I wish for God to give you all the insight you need to further help in this movement of frugal living.
Love and Prayer
Your Christian Brother
Phil