Food Waste Friday | This is the sort of food waste...
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.
...that you can do nothing about. 😉
Poor Zoe spilled almost her entire cup of yogurt smoothie on herself and her chair one day this week. And though I am quite committed to salvaging food, I don't expect anyone to drink smoothie that has been scraped off of a chair!
Happily, I have no other food waste to report this week. It's nice to have that happen every once in a blue moon, especially give that I'm the host of Food Waste Friday.
On the food waste topic, Jonathan Bloom of Wasted Food linked to this EPA graph about food waste, and I was so surprised to see that we throw away more food than plastic (and the plastic count is before recycling, so we definitely toss more food than plastic).
You and I can't do much about the tons of food wasted by restaurants and stores, but with some care and planning, we can reduce the amount of food trash that we produce in our own homes. Give my 10 Ways to Reduce Food Waste post a read, and join us! Every little bit makes a difference.
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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.
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Today's 365 post: Remember the compostable SunChips bags?
I'm still waiting for my first no waste week.
Someday...
Me too!! *sigh*
Good luck next time!!
Maybe if you had a dog the smoothie would not have gone to waste. 🙂
Have a wonderful weekend!
or a toddler!
It's shameful the amount of food wasted in this country...We have been lucky enough to travel the world quite a bit, and people in other countries, (esp. poor countries) waste nothing. We can all stand to learn from them! I was watching a program on Discovery Channel recently that said this country wastes about 40% of the food produced here...there's a staggering statistic! Great job to everyone who is working to reduce their waste! Like you said, every little bit helps!
Actually ther'e's a huge amount of food waste in poor countries but it's at a different point in the production line. We throw out harvested, prepared food. In countries with lousy infrastructure such as India or Kenya, they lose it to pests in the field, spoilage during transit, and spoilage and pests in storage.
Something to learn for both groups.
A little bit of waste this week...am looking forward to the week where I have none!!!
I had those chairs in my last apartment! (In my new one, we don't have room for them, so we eat at the island on stools.) We got 3 of them for $9 each at the thrift store. MAJOR score.
Plenty of sad clementines got chucked this week. Sigh. At least they were cheap.
A few spears of steamed asparagus that got left out overnight--they probably would have been OK to eat, but they looked so unappetizing that I chucked them. And our fridge is crammed full of leftovers at the moment so we'll be eating what we have all weekend to make sure there isn't more waste for next week.
I didn't post about my particular food waste, but I sure heck blogged the heck out of the subject over the past week and a half!
Katy Wolk-Stanley
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without"
I HOPE THAT YOU FIXED THAT LITTLE ANGEL ANOTHER SMOOTHIE!!!!!!
Hahaha... yes, it is good for you to set a good example, but when you mess up you make us feel "human" so it is a win/win either way.
I wasted a partial box of instant mashed potatoes .I prefer the fresh ones. I hope people will donate at least a dollar to save the Japs. The fallout is coming our way. I did donate.
Sarah, your sentiment is good, but your wording is past its expiration date.
Arigato gozaimasu,
Katy
What a nice way of putting it, Katy! I immediately had the same reaction, but my brain is not nearly as diplomatic as yours.
One way to stop restaurant waste is to tell them not to bring bread or chips to the table.
We wasted too much this week...some of by poor planning on my part, and some it from things getting "lost" in the fridge! *sigh* Hoping next week is much, much better!! Can't afford to be tossing food out like it's nothing!!
I wonder if you'd be willing to do a post about kids and food waste. The gist of my question is this: do you end up washing much food, left on plates, down the garbage disposal? I'm feeling a bit frustrated that my kids seem to leave lots of food behind. We don't have a "clean plate" rule, but we do insist our kids try everything served. We serve small portions and don't have finicky eaters, but I still seem to garbage-dispose of lots of food! Help!
No blog & I don't clean my fridge on a weekly basis, but this is what got thrown out over the past week:
*A leftover condiment that had been in the fridge from when hubby had takeout who knows how long ago. Unknown to me what it was, but the bottom half was darker than the top half, so I figured that wasn't a good sign.
*Brie rind. I know you can eat it, but I just don't care for it. . .
*A bunch each of collard greens & bok choy. This one really pains me as I love greens. Both were bought for dishes hubby was going to make and went bad before he was able to get in the kitchen.
I threw out homemade fudge! How is that possible?
I didn't know fudge could go bad! I used to send it to a military friend in the desert. It took three weeks to arrive and went through ghu knows what during transit and was just fine when it arrived. Unless there were perishibles, such as blueberries, as additives?
I also have to admit; I have yet to have a food waste free week. I do have a dog that I use as a garburator. I fed the dog 2L of sour milk, a serving of chicken parm that was in the fridge for a few too many days, and a handful of wrinkly grapes. I would be curious if you go through your pantry at any point and purge through the stuff that has expired or gone bad. I usually do this once a year and there is a remarkable amout of food that gets thrown.
You mentioned the food waste in stores and restaurants. I have worked in 2 deli's in grocery stores and have waitressed. The amount of food that is thrown out daily is simply sin. I don't know any other word for it. I had to desensitize myself to it in order to continue working in such places and I can not do it anymore. I have thrown out entire bowls/platters of food that nothing was sold out. I have thrown out sandwiches that did not have anything more than lettuce and meat on them after just 2 days of being on the shelf because "everything had to be fresh". They were perfectly fine, not soggy or spoiled. It is not possible to have all the food choices in the stores that you see without enormous amounts of food that is thrown out every night and every morning. In one store, all of the food waste except bones, went down the garbage disposal into our sewer system. Nice 🙁 The restaurant was a little different but now it was the customers. I would have customers that would order huge plates of food, knowing what they were getting, and throw half away when they could have ordered a half order, saved some money and eaten what they ordered! Sometimes, that job was as difficult as the deli jobs!
Oh yeah, I had 3 avacados from Aldis ripen too fast and went bad and a small amount of black beans in a jar that spoiled. 🙁
No food waste for me this week - mostly because I didn't really buy much apart from bread. Although that reminds me that I haven't finished the very end of the bread yet - I think I'm going to create the croutons/tomaotes/grated cheese sidedish mentioned in the comments on The Mrs' blog (first link above). Have no money as I'm waiting for a refund from the health insurance and it still hasn't come in so I will be having a storecupboard/freezer eating week with (hopefully) no waste again next week. I cooked the last of the potatos yesterday so have some lovely mashed potatoes waiting to be made into potato cakes for lunch today. Yum. I love having a day off work so that I can make myself a nice lunch at home.
P.S. Does anyone have any good recipes for using up frozen, pureed strawberries? I froze lots of these last summer to use in making smoothies over the winter. And then my smoothie maker promptly died on me. I want to start clearing out my freezer and am having a strawberry block at the moment.
You can also use a food processor (don't fill more than halfway, so the liquid doesn't splash out of the bowl), blender, or immersion blender.
Jam.
Fruit leather (haven't tried it myself).
Ice cream.
Ice cream sauce.
This brings to mind one of our biggest challenges with food waste in our family: our toddler. She just wastes so much food. Do you have any tips on cutting this down?