It's Friday, and we don't have any food waste this week. But we'll have to work hard to avoid having any next week, because there are a lot of leftovers in our refrigerator.
If you're new to this blog, on Fridays I usually talk about food waste and even post a photo of the food that went bad over the course of the week. It's an effort to become conscious of how much food we throw away, so that we can try to buy less and waste less. The idea of posting the photograph came from Kristen of The Frugal Girl, and a lot of people have joined in the effort.
Why should we care about wasted food? Simply put, it's bad for the environment and it's bad for your wallet. Here's just one alarming statistic: Americans waste 40 percent of the food that they buy. And all that food sitting in a landfill adds to the greenhouse gas problem.
If you want to find out more, check out Wasted Food. So far, what's worked for us is to buy less in the first place, keep track of our leftovers, and create an Eat Me section of the refrigerator.
Are you watching your food waste? How did you do this week? What are your favorite tips for wasting less food? Please share your ideas and advice in the Comments section.
December 4, 2009
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3 comments:
I waste very little food. All of our meals are home cooked from scratch usually in big batches. After we eat, I freeze the remainder for a later meal. If it isn't all consumed then, either the cats and dogs or the compost heap gets it. Bread scraps are saved and frozen for later use as bread crumbs or in dressing.
We have 3 containers in the freezer: tomato-related, broccoli-related, everything else. Even tiny scraps of food are tossed into the bins for future soups. We freeze veggies that are getting soft, even celery & onions. It's all fine in soup.
Leftover beans can be mashed with spices and grains to become veggie burgers. Overripe fruits are mashed and added to muffin or pancake recipes. Fruits can also be frozen and turned into smoothies, fruit crisps, etc. Many fruits you wouldn't eat after freezing can still be used in recipes. We freeze lots of apples when they're on sale (cut up first) and put them in cornbread all year.
Using leftovers creatively is a fun challenge.
Leftovers were my downfall this week--an extra slice of pizza that just never got eaten and one last serving of green bean casserole, left over from Thanksgiving. Everyone refused to take home Thanksgiving leftovers, and I knew we'd never make it through all that. At least we managed to down most of it.
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