It turns out that another blog I follow is also doing a Food Waste Reduction Challenge. The Crunchy Chicken posted a very informative article about the horror of food waste. The gist is "50% of the garbage that goes into the landfill is edible food. Even if your food goes out into the compost or picked up by your local yard waste service for composting, it's still not only a waste of money, but it's also a waste of energy. "
I was going to post my food waste on Sunday, the day before I shop for groceries and the day I like to clean out my fridge, but the Frugal Girl posts her food waste on Friday and she includes a link from her blog, so I will just do it on Friday, too. It will help me remember to get it done.
I have no waste from my fridge this week and as I mentioned earlier I cleaned out my freezer last week (a heel of bread and two hot dog buns). So today I tackled my pantry and it was not pretty.
I had two different jars of protein powder that we used for smoothies before G was born. G doesn't like smoothies (at least not with protein powder, which admittedly is not very tasty) so we never use the stuff anymore. Really, everything - the graham cracker crumbs, the gluten-free bread crumbs I bought mistaking them for *real* bread crumbs, the wild rice, the milk chocolate chips I mistook for semi-sweet, the powdered sugar, and package of instant alfredo powder (what was I thinking?) - was purchased *years* ago and I kept hoping I would one day use them, but I am now willing to admit that day will never come and hopefully the chickens will benefit since we never did.
Now that I've (mostly) cleaned out my pantry, I'm hoping to find that I have no food waste in the coming weeks. I'm generally very good with planning/purchasing food for meals and we happily eat leftovers for lunch, so I really can't remember the last time I threw out (or gave to the chickens) much food from the fridge. And I still have months to figure out what to do with all the kohlrabi we get from our CSA that *always* got wasted. :)
2 comments:
Ah, it's like declaring bankruptcy, isn't it?? Now you have a fresh start. :)
I think maybe I found you through a list of unschoolers..? I thought the same thing to myself when reading through your blogs.. kindred spirits! :)
I love that you are trying not to waste anything, it is something that I recently have become more consciously aware of myself and it feels so good! Just this evening I made vegetable stock and then chopped up some veggies to throw into my soup. I had some random leftovers that normally I would have pitched, but then thought to myself, "surely I can use these for something!"
Oh, and that's awesome that you guys just went with the flow and let your son play with the pizza dough. Ha.. I love how kids are so spontaneous!
Will definitely stay in touch. :)
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