These tangerines from our CSA got moldy in 3 days! So it really wasn't our fault they went bad, but they are wasted food so I'm putting them in the photo. At least they'll go in the compost bin and not in the trash.The produce in our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) delivery normally lasts much longer than produce from the supermarket, so this was highly unusual. I did notice that they looked different than the clementines we'd received before, they were larger and bumpier, but I just thought they were from a different grower.
Anyway, there's not much to learn from this because it was a fluke. Otherwise, we're using up our CSA contents as fast as we can, and I've been cooking up greens every night so they don't go to waste. It helps that they're so delicious we actually crave them.
Why do I care about our food waste? For the health of the planet, and the health of our bank account. You can read all about the effect of food waste on the environment at Jonathan Bloom's blog Wasted Food. And you can follow other people documenting their food waste in an effort to waste less at The Frugal Girl.
How did you do this week? Let us know in the Comments section. And check out this article from The New York Times about cutting your food waste by utilizing your freezer more. It's got tons of tips for storage, labeling, planning, and organizing your meals.
8 comments:
Oh, it is sad when good tangerines go bad! My little boy would sit and eat nothing but clementines all day long if I didn't insist he eat other foods, too! We felt rushed to use up the veggies on the first few days of the CSA, too, but they were just delicious and it was rarely a hardship to have a bunch of fresh veggies!
I posted an award for you over on my blog. :) http://thesavedquarter.wordpress.com/2010/01/29/would-you-look-at-that-im-kreativ/
I am very fortunate in that we are able to get free produce from a local grocery by picking up the foods that would be discarded. This store is pretty high end, and most of the stuff is organic so that's even more groovy. The bad news is the stuff does tend to spoil more quickly than usual, for obvious reasons. But the fact that we get oodles of wonderful would-be-pricey stuff for free far outweighs any negatives☺
You poor little tangerines look so pathetic... sniff.
Just some lettuce and spring onions which I was able to compost. Very happy with this effort as a couple of years ago it would been a bag of food for sure.
We've had farmer's market flukes like that, too, and it's always so disappointing!
Also, you should head on over to my blog--I've given you an award. :-)
I've had this happen occasionally with fruit from the farmer's market. It is disappointing, but fortunately it is a rare occurance.
thesavedquarter and Cate- Thanks for the awards, ladies! That must be good luck to get two in one day.
These are probably in your compost heap by now, but I have a question: Could you have juiced them and used that in something or to drink? With fruits that have to be peeled, just because the outside is bad, doesn't mean that the inside is.
Save the seeds and plant them in pots!!!
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