Food Waste Friday | + links
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. If you're not a blogger but still want some food waste accountability, feel free to participate by leaving a comment.
I'm pleased to report that I wasted nothing this week. Sweet!
I did forget to report half a pizza bagel last week, though, so you can mentally add that to my two avocados.
Since I'm so boring (in a happy way) today, I'll share a few food waste related links.
A reader (and then another!) sent me a link to an article related to food waste, focusing on expiration dates. I've written about this topic before, and the article is a good refresher!
Also, a reader sent me a link to a Smithsonian slideshow of anti-food waste photos from World Wars I and II. I love these, especially the first one!
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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 widget below. You'll save money, reduce your trash output, and get a little publicity for your blog! And if you don't blog, you can still share about your food waste by leaving a comment.
I wasted a few moldy strawberries and a few muffins that got moldy. I was really mad about the muffins!
Pour milk down the drain!? The only time I would do that is if it had actually gone too far off to make muffins. My partner (who I don't live with yet) is food paranoid and will chuck something just because the date has passed. I get on his case about it. When we do eventually co-habit I will have to be in charge of the fridge. Although one time he did have a point as the item in question was chicken and it was green. I hate wasting food and I will try your experiment to see if I can cut down on my own food wastage.
How long does it take most people to get good at this challlenge?! Our family is not doing so well, I through out a whole watermellon that we had grown in our inlaws garden (my daughter did not like the seeds..) a bag of pita bread, a bag of green and yellow beans that were forgotten at the bottom of the fridge, and a muffin!
I love getting fresh food from gardens but sometimes we can't eat all of them 🙂
I don't know if you ever get good at the challenge. You have good and bad weeks. I find for the veggies and fruits only buying or getting enough for 1 week at a time and/or freezing them for later use. That seems to cut most of the waste.
For things like bread we only keep one loaf out on the counter at a time. The rest is frozen. We keep muffins,etc in the frig.
We rarely have meat waste but it has happened. Still trying to find a way for that not to happen.
Oh, it took me a LONG time to have even one-zero waste week. We're talking months. lol
Hang in there, and just rejoice at any improvement.
There are a few tricks that can help cut down the waste. With garden produce, esp if you didn't plan on it appearing when it did, is to clean and prep it, then freeze it. I blanch peas and beans first, and with zucchini I just de seed it and grate it in my food processor, squeeze out some of the water, and put it into freezer bags.
Bread definitely stays in the freezer till we need it to keep it fresh.
I also find that I am now shopping for what I think we need for 6 days instead of 7, and only planning about 5 main dinners, assuming leftovers will be another few meals. If we need more, I can go pick up something, or just get creative with pantry and freezer items. I used to get way too much food. I also keep my meal ideas flexible so I can rearrange a meal order if I see that some produce or item I though would last another few days won't make it that long.
I also clean out my fridge every sat before I shop. I know what I have and what I need, the shelves are pretty empty so it is easy to wipe them out if needed, and I can find items that are from my last shop. If they are still good, they become the top priority to use up ASAP because they won't last much longer. But keeping less in the fridge means that less gets lost in the back, so you can see what you need to use up.
Not a good week in our household. We tossed: a bottle of apple cider vinager(?sp) as we didn't know how long ago we got it or even what for,three purple yams,2 carrots,some bad watermelon(It was bad when we first cut into it). We also tossed the fit and active string cheese from Aldi's it has a weird taste and we tossed some ice cream sandwhichs(fit and active) secondary to my mom not checking whats in them and me finding they had high fructose corn syrup.
I am not proud of all that waste. We usually do much better than this.
Not the best week at Chez WilliamB.
- An entire (small) spaghetti squash. When I cut it open it had a green ring; since I was cooking something else I decided to cook it anyway. It became mush instead of spaghetti. I can only console myself that if I'd returned it to the store it would have gone into the trash instead of the compost pile.
- The leftover beets from a restaurant dinner. They were good fresh but I don't like the vinegary marinade the second time around. Same consolation as with the spaghetti squash.
- Too many bits of berries. It wasn't a lot food and I consider having a few moldy raspberries the price of getting raspberries at all, but it irks me to let strawberries get soft.
- Too many bits of CSA green beans. Again, waited too long before deciding what to do with them so some of the ends had dried out. I broke off the dried parts and used the rest. On the up side I like the preparation (a CI technique) so I'll use it this weekend on the rest of the beans.
- Bits of CSA peaches. I'm not into peaches this year so my choice is to make them directly into ice cream (tasty but too rich for regular diet) or wait to see if someone else will eat them, at the risk of needing to cut away bad bits before using the remainder.
I haven't decided if tossing homegrown cukes counts as waste. I grew them from seed, used little extra water or labor, and no fertilizer or transport. It's food, of course, but not a lot of the associated inputs that makes food waste so wasteful. Thoughts?
I think homegrown food doesn't count as waste...you didn't buy it, you didn't consume resources to get it to your house, and it's not creating any garbage (assuming you compost, which I know you do.)
I mean, I try not to waste homegrown food, but I don't count it if it does.
this will teach me for typing on my phone, but i typoed my link above. can you delete it so i can put up the non-typoed version?
sorry, it's been a rough day so far.
It looks right to me! Did you fix it?
I had kind of a bad week too...I tossed 4 mini eggplants, 5 mini red peppers, the last little bit of salsa as it was growing things and a tomato from my in-laws garden that was brown and squishy. Thankfully, most all of it could be composted...made me feel a *little* better about having to throw all that out. I have a little work to do to avoid waste next week, but I think I can do it!
How about paper waste? Am I bad to keep requesting the P&G coupon books when I know I'm only interested in two products that are in them?
I recycle or compost all of my paper, so I don't have paper waste to speak of! lol I still try to use it up as much as possible though (both sides of the paper, using bits of paper for lists, etc).
I've been thinking about this and I don't see how recycling or composting paper means it's not waste, whereas composted food waste is still waste. Along the same lines if getting a booklet for a couple coupons isn't waste, then it seems that buying a larger package of food to use only some of it isn't waste either.
Underlying my analysis is the assumption that paper and food should be considered in the same manner. This may be unjustified.
I think it is. You can't eat paper. lol It will have to be disposed of some way unless you just keep it all until you die (at which point someone will dispose of it).
You have a point there - the only alternative to disposing of paper is not to make it in the first place.
No waste this week! Last week was rough though, and after I posted my waste I came home to find that a pan of brownies had been neglected and were no longer fit to eat. So I'm glad that this week was much better than last.
This is a good thing about having 4 kids...brownies NEVER go to waste. lol
Somehow even certain households without kids don't have brownie waste either. Or so I've heard.
Zucchini fell victim to food waste this week in my house. This NEVER happens. But rubbery, furry veggies aren't my thing. 😉
I was good this week and used up all of my leftovers. I threw out one dried out tortilla but I blame my husband for that because he didn't close the package properly. So I was a good girl this week. LOL
I can't believe ANYONE, kid or adult, would neglect a pan of brownies! LOL
Great job on a no waste week!
Can I ask a question? I'm relatively new around here and HORRIBLE about throwing out food. Well, we call it "redneck composting" which means we throw it into the woods behind our house and let the raccoons/squirrels/deer etc...have it. But anyhow, I am working on it and have made some improvements. After cleaning my fridge out tomorrow I am going to make a real effort. So my question is, how do you decide what is waste and what isn't? I'm assuming the top off a tomato doesn't count, since you wouldn't eat it anyway, correct? But what about the bits and pieces from my toddler's plate, for example? Do you eat your kids' leftovers? Of course I realize, ideally, they wouldn't have any food left on their plates. But my daughter is 2 - it happens. Between that and food prep we end up with a bowl or pot of scraps every evening.
Thanks 🙂
I bet I know what Kristen's going to say "That's up to you." IIRC she doesn't count her kids' plate waste partly because there isn't much. Me, I'd count grownup plate waste but not kid's, and am not sure when the kid is old enough to be accountable for zir own's plate waste.
"redneck composting" - Made me laugh out loud! Could the same term be applied to the guy I saw throwing a banana peel out of his truck window?
I had a bag of potatoes. I didn't take a photo because when I pulled the bag out from under another bag of potatoes, it was so bad there was liquid mush in the bag. Oh, and the smell - wretched! If I could I would have dropped the potatoes, grabbed the dog, slapped a bio hazard sign on the front door and moved. Just like that. Instead I tossed the potatoes bag and all in the trash can instead of the compost bin. If I put them in the compost, I would have had to open the bag. ew!
Not so good here this week--some leftover pasta and steamed asparagus I took to work for lunch and forgot about. A couple tablespoons of guacamole, and yes, the dreaded half a bunch of cilantro. I did make a use-it-up dinner last night with a bunch of odd bits of veggies, sauteed with leftover baked potatoes. Threw in a couple of eggs and topped it all with cheese. Not elegant but it tasted fine and used up a bunch of stuff. My mom has been in the hospital all week so the meal plan went out the window with visits added to our regular schedule. I'm delaying shopping for a couple of days to use up more stuff, but sometimes life throws you a curve and you just do the best you can!
And the food posters are great, by the way. Love the canning ones as I've been bitten by that bug this year. Despite the busy week, I did manage to can pear butter and Chinese plum sauce.