Food Waste Friday | I’m full of beans.

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.

Well, my compost bin is. All of these beans got moldy.

They look kinda ok in that picture, but they really were beyond salvaging.

(very moldy picture alert)

(you have been warned)

Yup. That’s more than I want to mess with.

I’m annoyed with myself and with Weis over the beans.

First, why I’m annoyed with Weis: They’ve lately only been selling beans in large-ish plastic containers. I hate that. I’d much, much prefer to be able to choose how many beans I want, and also to be able to choose which beans I want (if I choose my own I can make sure they’re all good…in a container, all bets are off. And we all know what a single moldy bean can do to a pile of good beans.).

I’m going to have a chat with the produce manager next time I’m there and find out why they’re packaging the beans this way and ask for a change. It doesn’t hurt to ask, right?

Secondly, I’m annoyed with myself because I didn’t look closely enough at the packaging date. The beans looked fresh and crisp, but when I looked at the date yesterday, I realized the beans had already been on the shelf for 5 days before I even bought them.

So, lesson learned. But the beans were the unfortunate casualty.

Happily they are quite compostable, so at least they’re not going into the trash.

Which reminds me! A new reader wrote this week to ask if the photos I post are really all the food I throw away each week. She wondered if I only took pictures of the non-compostable stuff.

As evidenced by this photo, that is not the case…I take a picture of whatever food we waste, whether it’s headed for the trash or the compost. The only wasted food I don’t photograph is stuff like bruised spots I cut out of apples (I figure that doesn’t count because I’m actually preventing food waste by cutting out rotten spots instead of throwing the whole thing out!), and also table waste (like the few soggy Cheerios Sonia left in her breakfast bowl).

Neither of those types of food waste were my main problem, though, back in my pre-Food-Waste-Friday days. I was the queen of freezer-burnt food, I let leftovers go bad ALL the time, and to my shame, many fruits and vegetables turned to slime in my produce drawers. So, those areas have been where I’ve focused my food waste efforts.

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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: I caught a smile.
Joshua’s 365 post: Swingin’ in Spring