Food Waste Friday | Peas

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 late! Mr. FG stayed home from work today to take Sonia to the pediatrician, so I wasn't up as early this morning. I have more pictures to add to this post (of my fridge), but just so I can get the linky up, here's a picture of some snow peas I found. I bought them in, uh, February.

I'll edit the post a little later to explain how I found them!

Ok, I'm back!

Yesterday before I went grocery shopping, I decided to clean my fridge. As in, take all the drawers and shelves out and wash them kind of cleaning.

This doesn't happen too often, so I thought a picture was in order.

Anyhow, when I took out the produce drawers and the shelf that holds them, I was very surprised to find that the bag of peas from February had fallen into the very back of the fridge. They were so far back there it would have been quite impossible to find them without deep-cleaning the fridge, in fact.

And that is how I happened to find 2.5 month old peas.

Since the bag wasn't air-tight, the peas just dried up instead of molding, but I still felt like I wasn't up to actually eating them, so they're now hanging out in my compost bucket.

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Today's 365 post: Adagio in G Minor

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24 Comments

  1. Again, lettuce is smarter than me. Very much so.

    And those were some clever peas, to hide out that long without being found. I bet they moved every night while the door was closed to escape detection.

  2. Don't feel bad - I "find" stuff all the time!! Sometimes so long that I don't even remember when I bought it, so you're doing better than me on that note. 🙂

  3. My theory is that something or someone goes into the fridge and moves things around so that stuff is "lost" in the back.

  4. We had a much better week this week! A few things were thrown out that didn't get eaten before their expiration date.

  5. You should assign a food detective to snoop in the refrigerator for mysterious foods that might decay before friday!!!!!! By the way your refrigerator looks so healthy!!!:}

  6. A good week here--just a couple of tablespoons of wasabi cream sauce that I'd saved to put on sandwiches, but it separated and smelled funky.

    We do have some fresh parsley but I am determined to use it up and not be defeated by it!

  7. Ok. Two things.

    1) I hope Sonia is well!

    2) How do you figure out where you place things in your fridge? Do you put glass things on top out of reach of little ones? Do you put things you use often in the middle? I can't deduct your method from the photo :p (I tend to put all dairy products (and lunch meat) on the top shelf, all bread and leftovers on middle, and any large fruits/veggies/drinks/large bottles on the bottom shelf. Condiments in door).

    Then again.. I don't have adjustable shelves in my fridge either!

    1. Well, it just kind of goes by how things fit! Small condiments and the milk go on the door (I know milk sometimes goes bad being on the door but we go through our gallon fast enough to prevent this).

      Yogurt and jam mason jars go on the shelf that's the right height for them, produce goes in the drawers except that when the drawers are too full (like they are now after shopping), produce goes on top of the right drawer.

      Extra milk and the water pitcher go all the way on top, as does the kids' juice.

      Oh, and butter and cheese go in that big flat drawer at the bottom.

      So, yeah. My method is kind of random!

    1. That's because those ones were on their way to getting a little too ripe, and putting them in the fridge slows down the ripening process. 🙂

  8. Okay, so I really like your fridge! What kind is it? I also was wondering what Faye was wondering... why do you have bananas in the fridge?

  9. I want to know what type of frige are you using? What is the size?
    Everything looks so organized. Thank you.

  10. I could have wasted an entire container of homemade beef noodle soup. I left it sit out all night by mistake. Then I remembered our dog, Luke. He loves it; no waste.
    Concerning fresh parsley - it can be frozen for later use.

  11. No waste for me this week. Mind you, I've had to have a giant salad for dinner today to make sure I got rid of all of it before it was beyond redemption. But that encouraged me to get around to making bread to use up the rest of the buttermilk as well so it's all good (especially the bread - yum!).

    I've seen a few photos of fridges recently and everyone seems to have those half-width shelves now. Very practical although it should be a good few years before I need to replace my fridge so I'll just have to envy them for now (and keep an eye out if I see any fridges out for the bulk rubbish collection that might have shelves worth swiping 🙂 )

  12. Celery. It always causes problems because I cannot use all of it in the time it goes bad, yet I hate to leave it out of soups and salads. Is there a way to purchase smaller amounts without spending an exorbitant amount of money? Can celery be frozen for later use?

    1. Yes! You can freeze it...I tried it a while back and it worked really well. I hear it works best if you saute it first, but I've often just sliced and frozen mine. The thawed celery is best in things like soup or in the bread stuffing for a chicken. Basically, you just don't want to try to use it like you would raw celery.

    2. Celery will last a lot longer if you wrap it in foil. Tear a long sheet of foil from the roll twice the length of the celery bunch, fold in half, sealing the celery inside the "envelope" package. It can last over a month if I recall correctly, definately longer than just the plastic bag.

      Source: Chowhound.com

  13. Finally got a chance to post today. Better late then never, I suppose. Had some waste, but a much better week for me/us!!

    Happy Easter!