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.
…that you can do nothing about. 😉
Poor Zoe spilled almost her entire cup of yogurt smoothie on herself and her chair one day this week. And though I am quite committed to salvaging food, I don’t expect anyone to drink smoothie that has been scraped off of a chair!
Happily, I have no other food waste to report this week. It’s nice to have that happen every once in a blue moon, especially give that I’m the host of Food Waste Friday.
On the food waste topic, Jonathan Bloom of Wasted Food linked to this EPA graph about food waste, and I was so surprised to see that we throw away more food than plastic (and the plastic count is before recycling, so we definitely toss more food than plastic).
You and I can’t do much about the tons of food wasted by restaurants and stores, but with some care and planning, we can reduce the amount of food trash that we produce in our own homes. Give my 10 Ways to Reduce Food Waste post a read, and join us! Every little bit makes a difference.
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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: Remember the compostable SunChips bags?
Rebecca
Monday 21st of March 2011
This brings to mind one of our biggest challenges with food waste in our family: our toddler. She just wastes so much food. Do you have any tips on cutting this down?
Moonwaves
Monday 21st of March 2011
P.S. Does anyone have any good recipes for using up frozen, pureed strawberries? I froze lots of these last summer to use in making smoothies over the winter. And then my smoothie maker promptly died on me. I want to start clearing out my freezer and am having a strawberry block at the moment.
WilliamB
Friday 25th of March 2011
You can also use a food processor (don't fill more than halfway, so the liquid doesn't splash out of the bowl), blender, or immersion blender.
Jam. Fruit leather (haven't tried it myself). Ice cream. Ice cream sauce.
Moonwaves
Monday 21st of March 2011
No food waste for me this week - mostly because I didn't really buy much apart from bread. Although that reminds me that I haven't finished the very end of the bread yet - I think I'm going to create the croutons/tomaotes/grated cheese sidedish mentioned in the comments on The Mrs' blog (first link above). Have no money as I'm waiting for a refund from the health insurance and it still hasn't come in so I will be having a storecupboard/freezer eating week with (hopefully) no waste again next week. I cooked the last of the potatos yesterday so have some lovely mashed potatoes waiting to be made into potato cakes for lunch today. Yum. I love having a day off work so that I can make myself a nice lunch at home.
Shannon
Saturday 19th of March 2011
Oh yeah, I had 3 avacados from Aldis ripen too fast and went bad and a small amount of black beans in a jar that spoiled. :(
Shannon
Saturday 19th of March 2011
You mentioned the food waste in stores and restaurants. I have worked in 2 deli's in grocery stores and have waitressed. The amount of food that is thrown out daily is simply sin. I don't know any other word for it. I had to desensitize myself to it in order to continue working in such places and I can not do it anymore. I have thrown out entire bowls/platters of food that nothing was sold out. I have thrown out sandwiches that did not have anything more than lettuce and meat on them after just 2 days of being on the shelf because "everything had to be fresh". They were perfectly fine, not soggy or spoiled. It is not possible to have all the food choices in the stores that you see without enormous amounts of food that is thrown out every night and every morning. In one store, all of the food waste except bones, went down the garbage disposal into our sewer system. Nice :( The restaurant was a little different but now it was the customers. I would have customers that would order huge plates of food, knowing what they were getting, and throw half away when they could have ordered a half order, saved some money and eaten what they ordered! Sometimes, that job was as difficult as the deli jobs!