Food Waste Reduction Challenge wrap-up

Well, the Food Waste Reduction Challenge went out with a bang. We did really well on meals, but had some issues with odds n' ends.

To be fair, I went through the fridge yesterday and made sure I got rid of items that had gone bad instead of surreptitiously throwing it out after the challenge.

Here are the results of the last week:

1 cup sour cream
12 oz buttermilk
3 jalapenos
1 cup salsa
3 heads of broccoli
1/2 cup black olives
1 head lettuce
1 lemon
1/3 onion
1 cup basil

I suppose I could have tried to whip together some sort of Mexi-thing, but most of the ingredients had gone south and I didn't think they were safe to eat. One nice thing about clearing out the fridge frequently is that I know that everything left in there is edible so I have no excuses for the next week or two.

All in all, I think we did fairly well this month in reducing the amount of food we toss out. We generally compost a heck of a lot more than we did last month, although we still really need to work on the kid's leftovers (as many of you did).

How did the challenge go for you? Will you continue trying to reduce how much you throw out or did having to fess up to your food waste sins make you think twice about your food?

Oh, and don't think I'm done commenting on yesterday's post. I have a lot more to say on the matter.

Food Waste Reduction report #3

The third week of the Food Waste Reduction Challenge went well for me. Of course, it ended up with me choking down a few things I'd rather not have, but mostly because I'm still a tad nauseated from the strep/penicillin fiasco.

We did end up composting a few things, but the only stuff I was more or less "responsible" for was about a half cup of white onion. I was getting major heartburn from it and couldn't forsee eating it in the near future.

So, how did week #3 go for you?

Food Waste Reduction report #2

The second week of the Food Waste Reduction Challenge didn't go so well for our household. I wasn't feeling too great from having strep and we had a few other stressful events going on (what else is new?), so I was being awful lax about leftovers.

So, forgive me starving people around the world, I threw out (well, composted) perfectly good food just because I was too lazy to do something else with it before it went bad:

About 5 tortilla chips with cheddar cheese (in all honesty, this was my daughter's leftovers, but there were untouched and I could have eaten them)

The ends of a loaf of bread

Four slices (butts) of sandwich bread

Most of one apple

Most of one pear

One cup of beans

One cup of pasta

1/4 of an avocado, a few slices of tomato and onion

I'm sure I've forgetting something, but that just about rounds it up. How was last week for you?

Food Waste Reduction Check-in

Sorry for the late post today, people, but I've got some sort of strep-like virus going on. Anyway, I wanted to let people have the chance to check-in today and let everyone know how their first week of the Food Waste Reduction Challenge went.

I didn't get around to taking a picture but, for myself, I've thrown away (composted) a half a piece of bread and about 1/4 cup of bean dip. You'll have to visualize for yourself since it went into the yard waste bin already. I've been eating a lot of leftovers and freezing what can't be eaten in a reasonable amount of time so, aside from inedible food parts, there's not much food waste being generated.

The kids, on the other hand, well, I don't even want to think about it. They both have been sick with various head colds, stomach viruses and other issues and so there's been a bit of food waste on their part. I did manage to reduce it as much as possible by only doling out a small amount of food at a time and reintroducing food that wasn't eaten at an earlier meal (within reason).

How 'bout you? How was your first week? Feel free to add in links to your posts if you are posting about it on your blog so that others can read.

Food Waste Reduction Challenge kick-off

No, this kick-off has nothing to do with the Superfluous Bowl, but a much more important event - you reducing your food waste! Today is the first day of the Food Waste Reduction Challenge and this month it's your job to make sure you throw away or compost very little food that could have been eaten with better planning and use of ingredients.

If you haven't started doing this yet, your job for this week (today if you have time) is to go through your fridge, cabinets and storage and throw out or compost the food that is beyond hope of salvaging. This way you start with a clean slate and will have a better idea of how well you are doing for this challenge.

Once you've successfully completed Operation Clean Sweep, start doing some meal planning starting with this week and beyond, if appropriate. Figure out which foods need to be eaten within a week and meal plan to make sure that those foods get consumed. If you have items that have a longer shelf life, plan to consume those before they go bad, keeping a ranking of "first bad = first eaten".

If you need help or suggestions on what to do with things that are starting to look sketchy, ask for it here! Last night I made a load of roasted vegetables with some Brussels sprouts that we hadn't gotten around to eating, half an onion that was going begging and some carrots.

I didn't see a head of purple cauliflower hiding behind my husband's infusion grenades (a happy blend of toxic chemicals my husband infuses into his arteries twice a day), but I've got a plan to make Pioneer Woman's cauliflower soup. I also froze two bananas that were looking beyond help for a future banana-chocolate chip bread.

For those of you wanting to supersize your food waste challenge, I hereby challenge you to the following weekly Sunday task: post on your blog (if you have one) a photo of your food waste for the week. You can take several photos or you can calculate the weight of only those items that you could have eaten but didn't (for alternative reporting).

What I'm getting at here is don't include banana peels, egg shells and the like in the weighing or photographing. Accountability is key. So, each Sunday I'll be hosting a Sunday Supersize It! Foodwaste Confessional. This gives you an opportunity to link to your photo post or report how much food was wasted for the week. You can choose to just include your own food waste, our your whole family's.

So far, I'm pretty excited about making sure that I don't waste food. I might end up weighing 5 pounds more at the end of the month since no one is eating the grasshopper pie my husband made Friday, but it's all in the name of conservation! By the way, it's not too late to sign up for the challenge. Just add your name to the comments of this post!

Food Waste Reduction Challenge

You all know the stats: 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.

Really, how bad is it? A University of Arizona study showed that 40 to 50% of U.S. edible food never gets eaten. That's $100 billion worth of edible food discarded every year in the U.S.. It's a tremendous waste of resources and one that we are all guilty in contributing to.

There's also a large environmental impact as well if your food waste gets sent to a landfill. Food waste is the largest landfill contributor to methane gas production, so unless your municipality has a landfill-to-gas capture, your rotten bananas and forgotten pickles are contributing to global climate change.

How is it a waste of energy? Because there's a lot of energy that goes into growing and transporting your food (unless you grow it all yourself, in which case the impact is a lot less), throwing it out just means you have to replace it with more food.

Do you have a food waste problem? Most likely you do. This is one of those challenges that we all can and should do. So, now's the time to sign up for the Food Waste Reduction Challenge. But, what does it entail?

Well, it's pretty simple. Your goal is to try to reduce the amount of food you throw out or put into the compost. This does not include inedible food waste like egg shells or banana peels (unless you have a use for them I don't know about).

Your job is to keep track of the food that you have on hand and make sure that it gets eaten or preserved before it goes bad and needs to be disposed. All it takes is a little planning, some organization and the willingness to be creative. Just remember to cook wisely and shop wisely.

So, every week, go through your fridge, cabinets and cellar storage and see what's getting close to its pull date or is starting to turn. If it's getting near, plan on eating it, making it into a meal, preserving it or freezing it. Since this is an important challenge that will help you reduce your waste and save money I'm going to host it for the whole month of February.

If you are interested in signing up for the Food Waste Reduction Challenge, add your name to the comments of this post. I'll check in occasionally to see how you all are doing or if you have any food saving recipes or tips to share with others. If you want to put the graphic up on your blog, just paste the following code:

<a href="http://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2009/01/food-waste-reduction-challenge.html"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhutcZIxDPVwb4F7xjCGhHVMCROFOtwHnAN_1QklWEqDHFcLvfWsZVyQhdqpJCcZpNW7fk6j6aPWWfE3GRv6t6KD-7S8f5An3npm_ytuWoi51Jm8l61aRmtX2XKzMpCiAz5s8BcDxpHl8g/s1600-r/foodwaste.jpg" border="0" alt="Food Waste Reduction Challenge - February 2009" /></a>

Related reading:
One Country's Table Scraps, Another Country's Meal (NY Times)
All About: Food Waste (CNN)
Wasted Food (blog)