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.
I know.
What kind of person throws away chocolate??
(Me, apparently.)
I was decluttering my kitchen cabinets last night, and the job wasn’t too bad, probably because I cleaned them out pretty well when I painted my cabinets last year.
But somehow, in the very back of a cabinet, there were some very old chocolate melts (the sort you coat pretzels with). I had my kids taste them, because they have lower standards for chocolate than I do, and even they thought the chocolate tasted awful.
So I threw it away.
I also found two moldy, soft lemons in my fruit drawer:
And I haven’t sniffed ’em yet, but I think I have some leftover roasted chicken thighs that are beyond saving, and I have no excuse to offer for that. I should have put them on top of a salad, or made a mayo-based chicken salad or SOMETHING.
I guess the good news from this week is that after going through all of my food cabinets, I only found one small thing to throw away. So I am doing pretty awesome at using up unrefrigerated items and also at buying only things that I will actually use.
If you follow me on Facebook, you know I signed up for a CSA-style produce delivery service, which may present some new food waste challenges for me. You can pre-opt out of produce you hate (eggplant is crossed off of my list forever.), but still, getting unpredictable produce choices could throw me for a loop. We’ll see!
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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.
Those of you who participate in Food Waste Friday can now grab a fancy-schmancy button to perk up your posts. If you copy and paste the following code into your Food Waste Friday post, this little graphic will appear.
If you blog on WordPress, just make sure you’re in html mode when you copy and paste the code, or it won’t work properly.
naomi
Monday 9th of June 2014
Love this!! I'm going to add it to my blog and link up, thank you for sharing the button. I'm plan on starting this Friday.
EngineerMom
Friday 30th of May 2014
Yay for CSA! We signed up for one last summer in addition to getting a community garden plot, and it was a great challenge to figure out how to cook things I don't normally buy. Kale ended up permanently added to my grocery list, and I discovered a whole range of edible plant parts I previously didn't know you could eat and acquired some interesting garden knowledge (the flowering part of a kale plant is raab, you can eat zucchini flowers, which is helpful in controlling the eventual total zucchini harvest, beet greens are basically the same as swiss chard, broccoli leaves are basically kale, you can pick the outer leaves of loose leaf lettuce as needed, but it's better to let head lettuce fully develop before harvest, baby eggplant are much more tender and milder-tasting than "mature" eggplant, and asparagus is a huge frothy fern when it's allowed to grow up!).
Ask if your CSA includes recipes with each delivery. Many either do that or maintain a website or blog that can give you tips on coping with unfamiliar vegetables and fruits.
Raffaella
Monday 26th of May 2014
You throw away avocados, chocolate... You killer!! :D
Joy
Sunday 25th of May 2014
Old, funky lemons can still be put to good use. Saw a Pinterest post for using them to clean stainless steel sinks. I also know you can use them to clean/sanitize cutting/chopping boards, shining up bathroom hardware (from water spots), and cleaning your microwave by microwaving the lemon.
Kristen
Monday 26th of May 2014
What about if it's squishy and moldy? I couldn't really have picked them up and used them to scrub anything, probably! But these are good ideas for lemons not as far gone as mine.
Amanda
Saturday 24th of May 2014
Yours is the blog that has really convinced me to be more serious about food wasting. I would end up having a tower of containers of food to throw away and always think about people that didnt have enough. I'm doing better now, i cook smaller meals for my family because we realize we just don't like leftovers and that helps a lot. I pretty much harass them the rest of the time to eat something before opening something else.
Kristen
Monday 26th of May 2014
I am so, so encouraged to hear that. Yay!!!