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.
First, I wanted to tell you that BlogHer sent me the winners for the REI giveaways. Liz M. and Marisa are the winners…congrats, you guys! You’ve been emailed. 🙂
On to the M part of this post. First, I let several mushrooms go bad. They weren’t dry, they were moldy.
Dry mushrooms, I will rescue. Moldy mushrooms, not so much.
Normally I store my mushrooms in a small paper bag in the fridge and they’re fine. This time, I just didn’t manage to transfer them.
The other M thing I wasted? Milk.
I had some milk in a reused Snapple bottle, and it got shoved to the back of the fridge. Apparently, that’s a really cold part of the fridge, because the bottle froze and cracked.
Once again, I will rescue slightly sour milk, but milk with shards of glass mixed in? Nope.
This might be a good time to talk about glass and freezing and how I manage to use glass canning jars to freeze applesauce, tomato sauce, and jam. As long as there’s enough headspace for the food to move up as it freezes (water-based foods expand as they freeze), the jar will not break. The problem in this case is that there wasn’t sufficient room for the milk to move up as it froze, so it moved out and broke the jar.
So, as long as you don’t fill your jars too full, you can safely use them to freeze food.
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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: Back to the library
Joshua’s 365 post: Sisterly Love
Lynn
Saturday 1st of October 2011
I just blogged yesterday about how I had to throw out a bunch of food...it's no fun. I'm becoming more motivated to make sure we buy only what we're going to use, and then use what we have! It's hard, but I don't want to end up in the same situation as I found myself yesterday...
giddy tigress
Saturday 1st of October 2011
I thought I had to throw out the bag of sweet basil I had, but I managed to rescue some of it , yay me! The mushrooms you had to throw out are my favorites... :(
WilliamB
Friday 30th of September 2011
Fish leftovers that I didn't order, from a restaurant meal. Some pizza crusts.
I don't feel responsible for pre-sliced peppers went bad the day after I bought them. Just managed to finish the approx 2 lbs of leftover deli meat. One more day and the ham would have gone bad. The peppers and the meat were from a backyard party - I got far too much food and still didn't waste any.
WilliamB
Saturday 1st of October 2011
Also 1/2 hard boiled egg white[1], a bit of pizza fancy ham, and 1/8 c. cut fruit. Also got a great deal on local honeycrisp apples because I thought to ask for discards. Only one had anything substantially wrong with it.
[1] I deliberately toss the yellow - does that count as waste if it's planned?
Alexis @ Simply Alexis
Friday 30th of September 2011
I had quite an eventful week with my waste. Check my blog!
Sarah
Friday 30th of September 2011
I love your applesauce post. Not too bad this week. I wasted one apple. Darn it I could have used it to make your yummy stuff. Enjoy your weekend.