No Food Waste Friday

No picture, no waste. A zero-waste week, yay!

I have to admit that I'm proud of myself AND my husband for dodging several potential food waste landmines this week. And having control of this one area in my own life does calm me just a bit when the heartbreaking problems of the big bad world threaten to overwhelm.

These were the items we managed to avoid wasting:

Celery: I've never been a big fan, but we received it in our CSA and I used it in some soup and it was awful. It was stringy and I had to admit I hate the taste and it ruined the soup. Instead of throwing out the soup, I strained it and we ate it that way. Then when my husband didn't eat the rest of the celery, I gave it to my neighbor who was happy to receive it.

Tomato soup: I made such a big pot of soup, that even though it was delicious, after several bowls each we were growing tired of it. There was about half a bowl left that I ate one night after dinner instead of some other fattening snack, and it actually satisfied me.

Lettuce: After making a salad, I had about six leaves left that I put in a plastic bag in the crisper and told my husband to eat on his sandwiches and veggie burgers, and he ate all of them.

Bok choy: I've never cooked this, and it looked so likely to become waste that I almost considered giving it to my neighbor up front. But instead, I looked up some recipes online and sauteed it up with garlic and olive oil and it was a delicious appetizer.

The main point is that avoiding food waste has become habitual, something we are doing without a lot of struggle, and I'm happy about that. We continue to produce a lot less trash as well. And our refrigerator and pantry are less packed, so we can see and keep track of what we have better.

If you're wasting a lot more food than you'd like, it's important to remember that we all start somewhere. Kristen from The Frugal Girl wrote this great post last week, where she talks about how watching your food waste isn't an all-or-nothing proposition and shares photos of how much food she used to toss every week. Even if you don't get to zero waste, wasting less is better than wasting a lot.

FAVORITE BLOG POST OF THE WEEK: The most thought-provoking post I read this week was this post by Katy of The Non-Consumer Advocate about whether or not to accept a gift of money from her father to add a bathroom to their house, and whether accepting the money conflicted with frugality. There was a lively discussion in the Comments section. Check it out. Does frugality mean you shouldn't accept generosity from others?

Please share your thoughts about food waste, frugality and generosity, or anything you'd like in the Comments section.