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Food Waste

May 16th, 2013 at 02:48 am

My low spend experiment did have me looking at all the food we had just to come up with something to eat. There is still plenty of oatmeal, cream of wheat and quinoa in the pantry, but I'm the only one that eats it. It will take me some time to make it through that stash, but I will work on it, so that I don't waste it.

I received a magazine in the mail today with an

Text is article about food waste and Link is http://www.lhj.com/health/news/waste-not-how-to-stop-throwing-away-food/
article about food waste. American's through away 12% of all food purchased, and 25% of vegetables purchased. Yikes that is a lot of money down the drain.

Even if you aren't looking to keep your expenses low like I did the last two weeks, at least consider what you are buying and throwing away!

Any ideas on how much food, if any, you are throwing away each week? Do you throw away a bruised apple, or just cut that part off? I cut it off and eat the rest.

Posted in Spending, Healthy Living | 10 Comments »

10 Responses to “Food Waste”

  1. rob62521 Says:
    May 16th, 2013 at 02:56 am 1368669375
    1368669375

    It is scary how much food is wasted.

  2. creditcardfree Says:
    May 16th, 2013 at 03:03 am 1368669801
    1368669801

    And especially at schools!!

  3. My English Castle Says:
    May 16th, 2013 at 04:13 am 1368673981
    1368673981

    My DH will eat anything so very little goes to waste. If you have regular oatmeal, make oatmeal cookies or use it as breading for chicken breasts. I sometimes put it in meatloaf. Not sure what to do with Cream of Wheat.

    My favorite thing to do with odds bits of things is to google them together to see if a good recipe appears. I also heard a chef on an NPR morning show last week who you could call with your odd ingredients.

  4. My English Castle Says:
    May 16th, 2013 at 04:15 am 1368674134
    1368674134

    Sorry for the second posting, but I just went to creamofwheat.com and they have loads of recipes there. Once we won a case of pancake mix, and after giving boxes away, we still had loads. You'd be amazed what you can make with pancake mix.

  5. creditcardfree Says:
    May 16th, 2013 at 04:31 am 1368675080
    1368675080

    Thanks MEC! I didn't think of using the cream of wheat in a recipe for something else. Once I make something I'll post about it. Smile I have steel cut oats and quick oatmeal packets, so maybe not the best for baking, but I'll look around online now that you have me thinking that way. Smile

  6. LuckyRobin Says:
    May 16th, 2013 at 06:55 am 1368683742
    1368683742

    12% doesn't sound as bad as it really is until you realize that means 222 million tons of food is wasted in a year.

  7. CB in the City Says:
    May 16th, 2013 at 02:03 pm 1368709382
    1368709382

    Eliminating food waste is a personal mission of mine. I hate to throw away food! And there are so many easy ways to repurpose and use it up. I think the one thing that really makes to hard to avoid waste is simply buying too much in the first place.

  8. ceejay74 Says:
    May 16th, 2013 at 03:29 pm 1368714581
    1368714581

    I think we do pretty well. Once in a while we'll throw away a piece of fruit that went bad, and sometimes if we buy a head of lettuce we might forget about the last quarter of it. Celery I try to avoid buying because we rarely make it through a whole batch before it gets worn out; I do try to revive it in water and use it in something, but sometimes it's just too far gone.

    Once in a while something gets too freezer-burned to use, but that doesn't happen too often. Same with crackers and snacks; once in a while the last few bits get stale, but we're pretty good about finishing them off.

    The thing that gets me is the end-bits of veggies that I throw away. I know I could make stock with them, but I'm just too lazy, and we don't use stock very often so it would just take space in the freezer. I can't wait to have a yard so we can have a compost bin. (And yes, I've considered the wormy indoor compost bins and decided it would creep me out too much.)

  9. scottish girl Says:
    May 16th, 2013 at 04:24 pm 1368717854
    1368717854

    We (the UK) are bad for wasting food too. I like to think that me and hubby aren't though thanks to meal planning.

    http://scotland.lovefoodhatewaste.com/content/how-much-food-wasted-total-across-uk-0

  10. My English Castle Says:
    May 16th, 2013 at 06:14 pm 1368724473
    1368724473

    ceejay--I keep a bag in the freezer with veggie end bits, then when it's full, make veggie stock in the slow cooker. I plan a soup meal around it. Putsy--but you feel so darn virtuous. I often wish I knew someone with a pig or goat to feed the ends!

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