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.
Space
Remember how two weeks ago, I told you I was a little nervous about our ability to eat up all the greens we had in our fridge?
(I had a bit of a backlog because I’d been sick.)
Well, I was right to be nervous. We did make it through a big container of organic mixed greens and two heads of Romaine lettuce, but this poor spinach didn’t get eaten.
I also found a few bad mushrooms in the drawer that were from around the time I was sick.
The tomatoes are fine, though…they just happened to be on the counter.
In happier news, I bought a ton of produce last week, and we’ve eaten pretty much all of it up, which is lovely on both the food waste front and on the health front.
Ooh! I also figured out how to store extra fruit in the freezer without using Pyrex (I like to have that available for other uses.) or disposable plastic.
When I’ve got more fruit than we can eat in time, I freeze it on a pan and then dump the frozen pieces into a Mason jar. Since the pieces are individually frozen by then, they don’t stick to each other, and I can just dump the amount I want right into the blender jar for a smoothie.
I do put the lids on when the fruit is in the freezer, but lids on made for a boring photo. 😉
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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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Joshua’s 365 post: Oh my goodness!
Sarah
Thursday 25th of April 2013
I love the idea for freezing fruit in mason jars!! Also, I'm sure you know about green smoothies, but they are a great way to quickly go through greens if they need to be eaten, and spinach is so mild in flavor that you could probably put half the bag in a smoothie with some frozen fruit, and it would still taste great! These days, for a low-glycemic smoothies, I'm mostly using greens, avocado, coconut milk (coconut fat has so many health benefits), frozen berries, some plant-based protein powder, a little honey and water.
Greens are also amazing as a soup base. I never make soup without blending in tons of greens first, and according to Dr. Joel Fuhrman, you get about 4 times the nutrients when you blend food, so I blend away!! :-D
Thanks for your post and blog! I found it while looking for grocery list ideas! :) This post intrigued me, because I've certainly been guilty of having to throw away produce as well. I guess this is why I started buying most of my produce in frozen bags! Ha! It works out though, because I actually find the frozen to be cheaper in many cases, and they say it's often higher in nutrients since it's picked at its peak ripeness. Believe it or not, Whole Foods has really great prices on frozen produce (and also on broth). I love their selection!! :)
laura
Saturday 16th of March 2013
I saw recently (pinterest maybe?) that mason jars will screw onto a standard blender blade. So with your frozen fruit in jars, you could add the other smoothie ingredients to the jar and blend it up without dirtying your blender pitcher! And then drink right from the jar :)
WilliamB
Saturday 16th of March 2013
Wasted: half a cucumber 1/2 c. honeydew
Needs to be Used: 1/2 lb mushrooms large bunch of spinach 4 oz homemade char siu
Save of the Week: Sour grape tomatoes (bleck!) made fantastic tomato sauce. To be combined with mushrooms and spinach per Jacqueline's idea.
Amanda
Friday 15th of March 2013
We always use bags in the freezer and I hate the waste. I think I'll be stealing your Mason jar idea. :)
Helen - my lil adventures
Friday 15th of March 2013
I have no waste - officially but I have some 'shady' grapes lurking. Wondering what I should do?
WilliamB
Saturday 16th of March 2013
Try eating them frozen.