Blog Update!
For those of you not following me on Facebook, as of the Summer of 2019 I've moved to Central WA, to a tiny mountain town of less than 1,000 people.

I will be covering my exploits here in the Cascades, as I try to further reduce my impact on the environment. With the same attitude, just at a higher altitude!

Monday, February 22, 2010

Food Waste Challenge check-in: week 3

During the third week of the Food Waste Reduction Challenge we, well, fell down kinda hard. Aside from the usual kid food scraps (which are minimized by doling out food a little at a time), we had a bunch of food that didn't get eaten, for whatever reason.

So, to make a long story short, here's the summary:

1 banana
1 large strawberry
4 small tortillas
1/2 bagel
1 cup cooked chicken
1 cup roasted potatoes
1 cup refried beans
2 cups whole milk

Some of that could have been consumed, but I refuse to feel responsible for all the leftovers by myself just to consume it. And some of it was looking sketchy and I've had enough stomach issues lately that I didn't feel like proferring my guts up to the sacrificial intestinal gods yet again.

One more week left in the challenge and, hopefully, we'll go out with a bang. How was your last week, food waste wise?

18 comments:

Tree Huggin Momma said...

Not bad. I have to add an acorn squash (again purchased well before this challenge began, but that I will compost the remains after I salvage seeds), my butternut squash are still just sitting, but I did find a recipe for tortellin and I was thinking this might be a good use of the butternut squash with sarm parmesean. We have been keeping our fridge pretty lean, due to the challenge and I have to say it was a blessing. When our fridge died again (43 days after I paid $200 to repair it) I was able to put all the food in the coolers, and we have had so little waste as a result.
We used up the last of the sour tasting wheat bread to make french toast, and I used the heals to make garlic bread with cheese.

Kristen said...

I had to throw out the rest of a batch of hummus I made. This was an unsuccessful batch, and I should have just admitted that we wouldn't eat!

Scraps from produce went into the compost tumbler I made from an old plastic trashcan.

Overall, I'm liking leftovers more and more because I can take them to work for lunch so easily! It is coming more naturally to use what we have in the fridge. :-)

Maria said...

It was an okay week for us, too. I realize that I buy too much milk and I end up wasting it, so this week, I bought 1/2 gallon instead of a whole gallon and I'll see how that works. I had to throw out about 1/2 a quart this week.

My scraps continue to go to the chickens so I don't feel too bad about throwing out too much. But this week, we had to get rid of some pineapple and some apricots, some lettuce and some pork. Old stale bread went to the birds. My son came home again from college and took home some leftovers too.

Erica said...

No wastage - woot!!! And we used up the last of the pickled beets, frozen cranberries, and potatoes, and some of the pear sauce and delicata squash. It's funny how things that no one wants to eat in September, when there are still late peaches and nice crisp apples, suddenly taste pretty darn good when there aren't many other options. I distinctly remember thinking that the pear sauce was nothing special right after I made it, but it is delicious right now!

Adrienne said...

Better than last week. A couple stalks of wimpy celery, you know the ones in the middle that are already kinda wimpy to begin with... an apple that flew out of my purse onto the floor and was basically one huge bruise... and more yogurt. When I bought yogurt again I checked the expiration date and should be able to eat it all this time!

Krista said...

It is crazy. I swear that our food waste has gone UP this month. Well, now that I think about it, maybe I am just more aware or it. Either way, I am not happy about it. There isn't much, but more than I would like. I am hoping that this week there is NONE.

Robj98168 said...

Didn't throw out any food this past week! LOL Pretty easy when you are on the pizza diet :P

evilbunnytoo said...

When looking at your waste I was thinking that if some of the food wasn't rotten, next time you might want to freeze some of it.

Seriously, you can freeze
-tortillas. In my family growing up our budget was lean. We bought tortillas by the dozens from costco and froze them. You can do this two ways (a) my dad's way which is to throw the entire bag in the freezer and then pry off what you need as you go, or (b) my way in which you take the tortillas out and the repackage them in the bag by putting something (maybe paper or cloth) between 6 or 12 (whatever you will think you can use). the thing is that when you want to use them you need to defrost them in the microwave and then cook them on a comal.

-the chicken can be shredded and frozen for a quick taco later (again nuke it) along with the potatoes (seriously, potato tacos or flautas are very good, make them with leftover mash potatoes too). If you don't make tacos too often, freeze them for soup.

-the beans freeze too (we froze the beans in plastic bags, but I would suggest another container for ecofriendliness)

while you could have consumed the banana, throwing it on top of peanut butter with some chocolate sprinkles could be a suggested lunch treat for the kiddies.

I just want to say that my dad's thrifty ways are still going on now (not so ecofriendly though). leftover soup, meat, spagetti, whatever he thinks will freeze gets thrown in a bag and goes in the freezer to be reheated another day for lunch or dinner.

Where he gets waste occurring is veggies (he buys too much at cotsco).

Even pancakes can be frozen, when I was little when he made pancakes on saturday, he would make sure to make the pancakes the size of the toaster opening and then freeze them in small amounts so that we could pop them into the toaster before school and then spread pb&j on them for a quick breakfast.

good luck keeping up with your challenge.

ThiftedBliss said...

More than last week for me also. 1/4 cup feta-found in back of cheese drawer, 1/2 loaf of rye bread-too moldy to save, was buried under good stuff, 1 avocado, 1 cup soup that got pushed to the back of the fridge and it had milk in it so I had to toss it. On the bright side, all veggie scraps saved in freezer for broth, eat leftovers for dinner 3 nights, traded my extra lettuce and 1/2 bag of arugula for organic eggs.
Thanks to Tree Huggin Momma for the tip on freezing the fruit and also herbs. Any suggestions for way too much ginger? Still loving this challenge! Karen from CT

Aydan said...

Some slimy mushrooms, some greens that got away from me as I was washing them, and some sprouts. I also have a container of hummus that's going to expire tomorrow that I'll be throwing out-- new flavor, can't really handle it. Oh, and the cream cheese I found that I'd forgotten to throw out before my last school vacation (!!)

However, I did reorganize my pantry and find what needs to be used up.

Urban Thorn said...

I think we're doing ok, not great, but ok. there were a couple of small containers of left-overs that I looked at when i cleaned the fridge at the beginning of the month, thought "oh, I'll get to that before it goes bad" and promptly forgot existed. A few casualties to the mice! Honestly, if someone has a good way of getting rid of them I will be eternally grateful. I'd have to say that the biggest problems have more to do with the nature of 2 year olds than good/bad planning, in other words I'd rather not count it lol.

Julie said...

four dessicated mushrooms which i considered throwing in the coffee grinder to turn into mushroom powder but they were too ugly.

Luschka said...

Ours was really good - although we did throw out one cooked portion of food as DH left his chicken out till it went off! Oh well. Apart from that, no waste at all this week!oro

bodygeek said...

this week: 3/4 baguette, 1/2 loaf bakery bread. 1/2 cup (?) cheese that I scraped off the outside of a hunk due to moldishness. Um, really, I think that's it. Better this week, I guess, eh?

Not Buying Anything said...

My dining partner and I have not wasted edible food for a long time. Ever since we took on the slow life we have had enough time to use our expensive resources efficiently. However, we do not have access to a compost, so regard all compostable peels and such going to be buried in the landfill as waste. Some food waste can not be helped, but I can't see why anyone would scrape perfectly good food off a plate and into the garbage. This is one way 40% to 50% of the food produced in America ends up not being eaten. Kudos to everyone taking part in the challenge and raising awareness of this colossal wastage. May you all enjoy a waste-free supper tonight.

Lise said...

Well, I'm embarrassed to admit that we're not doing so well. I have 6 kids in a family child care, and I swear I swept more food off the floor this week than went into their stomachs! (The chickens got the sweepings, but still...) We're at the tail end of edibility for the carrots we stored this winter (haven't tossed any yet, but that's because I'm ignoring the scary ones at the bottom of the fridge), and last week I had to throw out what apples we had left--they'd all gone bad (like don't-open-that-mushy-newspaper-wrapped-wet-thing bad). Sigh. I've definitely been more aware, and have been very creative in figuring out ways to use the produce that's been hanging around all winter and really must be eaten soon, but still, there's too much waste. My chickens are healthy and plump, though!

Allie said...

I was all set for a no waste week, and then I discovered my daily salad was to be no more. Somehow or another, I lost 1.5 portions of salad (containing iceberg, red cabbage and carrot shreds).

equa yona(Big Bear) said...

GRRRR_ two bags of frozen veggies totally nasty freeser burned! Note to self-date frozen stuff!