Wilty lettuce. And thank you. But not in that order.
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.
Before we get to food waste, I just wanted to say thank you to the many readers who responded so kindly to my post yesterday, which announced some changes coming to this space. I really appreciate you encouraging me to place a high priority on my off-line life, especially because that's not in your own self interest! You guys are great.
I waffled a little bit before making the decisions that I made, but you know what? Now that the decisions are official, I feel really confident that this was the right choice. I think this will be the best of both worlds because I'll still get to talk about frugality with you guys here, and I'll have more time to spend with my five favorite people in the world: Mr. FG and my kids (and I think I'll also be able to find a little extra time to do some more activities that recharge me).
So. I'm happy and excited about the positive effect these changes will have on my life and ultimately on my blog as well. Thanks again for being gracious and supportive!
Ok. We really are going to talk about food waste today.
Here's mine:
Ooh! I have to tell you that I had a dream (nightmare?) this week, in which my fridge was filled with tons of rotten food. There was all kinds of bad stuff in there, but one thing I remember is that I had something like 4-5 containers of wilted, moldy lettuce.
I was so relieved when I woke up.
But then I went and wasted two little heads of lettuce. Fortunately, that doesn't hold a candle to the rotten lettuce in my dream.
This is two weeks in a row where I've wasted greens. Boo. I have a partial bag of spinach in my fridge right now, and a new package of lettuce, so I'd better get to eating some salad.
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A reader sent me a CNN article about food waste this week. I wasn't surprised to see that 40% of U.S. food is wasted and neither was I surprised to see that a big culprit is waste at home. Americans throw away 25% of the food they buy, on average. We can do better than that, right?
I shall think of this article as I soldier my way through the greens this week. 😉
P.S. Come back tomorrow because I have a giveaway for you!
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Today's 365 post: Well, I was wrong.
(and since I couldn't stand to stop at 869 posts, here's one last bonus post: Finis.)
Joshua's 365 post: Wrex
I am doing okay with the fresh greens these days, but I am having a hard time keeping up with the tomatoes. I guess they rot faster when you get them ripe off of the vine. But, oh the taste of a fresh tomato. One of summers true pleasures.
What a horrible nightmare! I think I dreamt something similar this week, where I had to throw out heaps of food. It's funny how minds work!
I wasted homemade bread, which made me sad because it was so tasty, and also some bought biscuits (or cookies), some sweet potato chips and some kidney bean shoots (although those were poisonous, so worth throwing away!). So I didn't have the best week and am hoping for a better one next week.
Humidity killed a beautiful new peach, and the rest was just carelessness on my part. We just moved to a humid location and this week we learned a swift lesson on the impact it has on produce.
use up greens by putting them in fruit smoothies. you will not notice them (unless you put a ton in).
I do that with spinach, but once I tried it with iceberg lettuce and holy moly, it was horrible! Does regular lettuce (like green leaf) work ok? I've been too nervous to try since the iceberg disaster.
It's shocking that the average American throws away 25% of their food. That's crazy! If they just used that food up, instead of throwing it away, they would reduce their grocery bill by 25% - amounting to hundreds (thousands?) of dollars each year. I did read that article that 40% of all produced food is wasted. Some of that is unavoidable - crops going bad, apples going bad during transport - but most of it is definitely avoidable as it happens in our own homes.
I had no food waste this week and pretty happy 🙂
Oh I love trying to interpret dreams...however I'd suggest this one was pretty much 'what it says on the tin' - thinking about food waste in the day translating to it popping up during slumber.
I have salad and strawberry waste this week - not very good at all! But I am determined to use up my courgette making my now affectionately nicknamed nom-nom bread (thanks for that Kristen!).
Only just publishing my No Waste Tastes Great post today as I had to knock up a jazzy little cocktail celebration cake for someone's 50th birthday this morning - but the strangest thing happened when weighing out my icing sugar (which of course I photographed!) - I'm putting it down to the Blue Moon tonight!
Jo - that cakes is amazing - you have quite a talent!
Thank you - that's very kind!
So glad you're enjoying the zucchini bread (or, uh, courgette bread!)
We are... and so are the neighbours! I'm nothing if not generous with my baking 🙂
Hi,
Just wanted to say, I don't think we can really consider compostable food a waste. If that were the case, then God must be really wasteful as every fall all the vegetation spoils, so to speak.
Now, to remain true to the intent of your blog, that plastic container the lettuce is in is truly wasteful! But please, next time, don't try to incorporate it into a recipe! lol
God Bless and keep up the great work, Kristen!
I have to admit, out of everything we buy greens are probably the thing we waste the most. But even that I try to compost since we don't really have that much yard waste to put in there. I try to put as little as possible in the trash can and not waste, but in the Summer, it happens. I think the reason we always have a bit of greens is that we buy two huge bags from a restaurant supply store (one of mixed greens, one of romaine) that are pretty much equal to 4 (or more) bags from the store. But the cost is so much cheaper! So while I hate to waste a bit every week or two (we usually get two weeks out of them), the greens are better quality, total packaging is less, and the cost is so much cheaper. The only other thing I've thrown away in the last week is a few kiwi's. They went from good to bad in about 24hrs. I don't know how they do that. :/
I feel your pain. I have such a terrible time getting kiwis at just the perfect stage of ripeness. It seems like I let them get too ripe most of the time, but then I get brave and cut one earlier and then it's horribly sour.
When I buy greens, I favor spinach and arugula, because you can still use them after they've begun to turn by sauteeing them and tossing with pasta, scrambled eggs, risotto, and even stir fry.
What a great approach to buying greens! I'm going to stick to those guys now, because I have also made the terrible iceberg smoothie mistake.
Ooh, I'm so glad it wasn't just me that did it. I mean, not that I'm happy you ruined a smoothie. It just makes me feel not quite as dumb.
Another Food Waste Win for me this week. Nothing to report. Whooopppeee!
Yay!!! Good for you.
It's so hard to believe that Americans throw away so much food in their own homes. 40% is a lot! I always think of how hard it was to earn the money to buy the food, then the effort to bring it home and prepare it. I wouldn't throw away 40% of our food, just like I wouldn't throw away 40% of our toothpaste or shampoo.
No food waste this week. I did a major cooking session the other day. The last thing I made was a ginormous pot of soup, where I deposited every last leftover in the fridge. I think about 7 quarts in total. All now in the freezer for busy days next week and the following.
I'm so mad at myself because a gorgeous tomato from the farmer's market went bad before I could use it. At least we enjoyed the pint of cherry tomatoes that I got from that farmer, he's the cutest old man and he looks like central casting just set him over. And I had to throw away 2 bags of pita bread which really ticked me off, because the "sell by" date turned out to be the day I realized they were moldy. Big "grrr" to that. From now on, I guess I'll have to put them in the freezer the day I buy them and not count on them staying fresh on the counter as long as they say...
p.s. I didn't have a chance to comment yesterday but I wanted to say "right on" and please take care of yourself and your family first, and we'll all be fine with less posts. My computer was broken all week and it was astounding how much more I got accomplished---even fighting off a cold---when I couldn't just say "I'm gonna check my email" and disappear into the Interwebz for a while.
I know! Gosh, it just sucks you in, doesn't it? I find turning my computer off is really helpful. Then I can't sit down for "just a minute".
My food waste this week... having to think about it. one pear that went from hard to oversoft and wrinkly. How do you get good pears at the grocery store? I don't think I had anything else, yet. But we have a loaf of homemade rye that just didn't taste good and somehow I don't think people are going to eat it. Also, looks like we may be moving in a little over a month, as my husband should be receiving the official job offer next week and so we will need to pare down as much of our food stuffs as we can. I am a couponer and keep a bit of a stockpile of non-parishables and Oh, is it going to be hard to pass up the deals!
Not too bad here, although we have a glut of cakes. We'll cope!
Ugg -- portobello mushrooms wasted. I consider them a splurge, purchased them, and then they got caught behind the turkey taco meat. Sad :(!
Now I am brainstorming what I am going to do with ALL of the tomatoes that are going to be coming out of my garden this week. I don't want many/any of them in the picture.
Any good salsa recipes?
For us it is bananas. For some reason they go from under ripe to squishy before we can use them. I have bags full in the freezer and we are burned out on them so it's time to stop buying them.
I buy romaine and do the salad in a jar thing. It's on youtube and I already had all the stuff. I started doing this because I was skipping meals and it was causing me to put on weight. Even though I am home, there was no way I would fix a salad every day for lunch. It's now just a matter of prepping on Sunday afternoon and having salad every day for lunch.
Forgot to link up on Friday!