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!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Food Waste Reduction report #3

Food Waste Reduction ChallengeThe 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?

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's definitely getting easier - I'm getting better at rationing and making quick decisions on whether to use or freeze leftovers before its too late!

Oldnovice said...

For us, this week was worse than last. I now have TWO plates of spoiled food and suspect there's a third plate in the frig.

Same excuse: We'd expected to eat it, but an unexpected virus threw off our regular schedule and we could barely stand looking at the stuff let alone eating it.

Had my mother had a grave and not been cremated, she would be screaming something about how the people in Ethiopia would never have let this happen. Whatever. [sigh]

Again, I'm not rushing to put up the photos of my sins.

Robj98168 said...

This was a really good week- no food waste at all. Yay me! The only problem I have is my mom- she has decided to send all her leftovers to work with me. Not so easy not to have food waste with extra bowls of spaghetti to eat as well. But I ain’t complaining. Chile was a big help by mentioning that I could grind down those unpopped kernels of popcorn and use them in corn bread!
Sunday- No food waste
Monday- No food waste
Tuesday- No food waste
Wednesday- No food waste- took some leftover spaghetti and garlic bread for lunch at work
Thursday- No food waste- took leftover Lentil Burgers for lunch at work
Friday- No food Waste
Saturday- No food waste

knutty knitter said...

Was doing ok until I found that jar of mouldy butter chicken sauce. Nothing else to report though.

yay!

viv in nz

TheNormalMiddle said...

I was really mad at myself this week. I did okay not buying too much/wasting food except for the fact I made a huge roast in the crock pot---and left it on the counter overnight instead of putting it in the fridge. I was so tired after dinner I forgot to put it away!

I was ANGRY that I let half a good roast go to waste. Would have been leftovers for the whole week's lunches!

Ashley said...

The good news is, I took the cans out to the curb and the only food waste we've tossed was a cup or two of rice.

Bad news, we've been trying to get rid of the pre-packaged foods and the gazillion bottles of all-purpose cleaners on the shelves (we really do carry multiples of cleaning products). In our effort to eat the food and use up the excess cleaning stuff, our load of recyclables doubled this week. We actually almost filled the can (usually have half a can at best).

I do think that this week went well though.

Niecey said...

We still aren't where I'd like to be. We eat left overs, leftovers rarely ever get thrown out. But the problem we have is stuff left on kids plates. They say they want something, then they eat a couple bites and walk away from the rest. I've tried putting less on their plates, but then they say they're hungry and want seconds. So I get them seconds and they eat one bite then say they're full. Argh.
So I've started putting less on my own plate, then when they're full I eat the rest from their plate. Not the most sophisticated way to eat, but it saves money and frees up a wee bitty space in the landfills.

Stacey said...

We did great! Our first ever week with no waste! You can see my post about how waste was avoided before Lent - make pancakes! - and get a great recipe for whole wheat pancakes here:
http://myfriendoprah.blogspot.com/2009/02/food-waste-for-week_20.html

Farmer's Daughter said...

Going well here! I guess that's just because we eat everything...

This morning I made left-over pizza dough into Italian-style doughnuts. I'll be posting about it shortly.

Marino said...

not too bad. getting easier.
mind you i think the soy milk in the fridge is starting to smell a bit funky... probably cos I'm the only one that drinks it and I do have a tendency to forget its there. Maybe i should just not buy it eh, instead of wasting most of the carton everyweek! lol

Kiwi Gal

healinggreen said...

I'm happy to report that now that all the expired items from years ago are gone from my pantry, we didn't waste anything. Even the shells from the mussels we ate on Friday are being saved, since we've decided to eat them once a week from now on -- getting fish into our diet for less $$ and saving the shells to use in our garden beds.

Cave-Woman said...

Better than usual...

I made "refrigerator quiche"...as in, what's in the refrigerator that is close to going south is going in the quiche. It was weirdly good.

I did have to toss about 4 large tbsp. or meat that was questionable. My dog had no problem eating it, however.

Anonymous said...

This was a particularly bad week for us. I was not keeping close enough track of my husband's food and 4 pears went bad. I tried to choke down one but it tasted way too weird for me. This one was partially my fault because I although the pears were bought for him... I will eat them if I see they are getting past their prime.

We also threw out some apple juice. I don't like to drink apple juice although I did have some to try to use it up.

And we have the same problem as Niecey. We try to give the kids less and they want more. We give them more and they eat almost nothing. ARGH!!

None of the food purchased for me went bad and that is what I primarily track. I have no control over anyone else in the family although it frustrates me to no end that they think it is ok to throw away food.

scifichick said...

We didn't do that well this week. I cleaned the fridge out and ended up throwing out a bunch of stuff.
I have a bit more about it here:
http://eternal-balance.blogspot.com/2009/02/food-waste-update.html

Anonymous said...

Not so good. I tried to make popcorn for a party and burnt about a cup of it. I also found something in my cupboard that had turned flourescent purple (!) Finally, we made sangrias a couple of weeks ago to get rid of some on the way out fruit, and we kept adding wine to it. It was delicious, but we finally had to throw out the dregs (about 1.5 cups of fruit).

healinggreen said...

ARRGH! I take it back! I just was putting away today's batch of fresh-baked cookies and found, tucked behind our dry canisters: 4 squares of GOOD chocolate gone B-A-A-D. It actually had mold spots all over it. I threw it away, since I;m pretty sure milk chocolate is not really great for compost. We hide our chocolate in a few different places, so our candy-loving toddler won't find it. Ive never had chocolate get actual green mold on it. So sad *sniff*!

Lisa Nelsen-Woods said...

We didn't have any food waste this week until I got a sore throat on Saturday and grabbed the container of Miso from the back of the fridge to make Miso soup. The lid came off of the miso and since it was hidden, it sat for I don't know how long and dried out - totally unusable. :(

To redeem myself, I did reuse some orange peels we had http://condo-blues.blogspot.com/2009/02/10-easy-ways-to-use-orange-peels.html.

Anonymous said...

Bad bad bad week here. Big batch of chicken soup got sick! smelled bad and had to be thrown out, one leftover serving of stir fry went out, jam got moldy and went out, and half a cup of korean pancake batter went out (and that was an attempt to salvage REGULAR pancake batter for a new use - I should have just made extra pancakes and toasted them!), and some sauces left from Valentine's Day had to be tossed, along with some yellow stuff that MIGHT have been eggwash at some time.

Funny how homemade quiche or BBQ never needs to get thrown out, isn't it?

Anonymous said...

i'm not officially taking the challenge but i couldn't believe how well we did to use up everything in our fridge and pantry before we did another big shopping trip.

a few tips:

i made a big list of everything i could possibly make with what i had.

i turned little leftover crumbly bits of cheese into a delicious cheese dip

i saved stale bread and turned it into bread crumbs

i salvaged a homemade pretzel recipe gone amok and turned that into bread crumbs also

i chopped up veggies that were going bad and saved them for a stock

i butchered my own chicken wings, saving the undesirable parts for chicken stock in the freezer

i preserved my salad and herbs better so they would last longer

i used leftover chickpeas in a pasta dish

i finally used up the old blackened bananas that i bought at 50% off and froze in banana bread and shakes

i used up other veggies in a shepherd's pie

i found a more efficient way to store my leftover bread bags and vegetable bags

i used the netting that the oranges, avocados, garlic and onions came in for an art project

Anonymous said...

By the way, you mentioned in your original "food waste reduction challenge" post that egg shells and banana peels don't count as waste, unless we could come up with a use for them. I actually found a way to get some use out of the banana peels. My kitten LOVES bananas and she will actually LICK all the flavour and white bits out of the inside of the peels, and eat the stringy bits. Isn't that weird/cute?

Jennie said...

Just a 1/4 cup of refried beans and a half a chinese take out dinner this week. We had a small handful of grapes get tossed to the worms, but that I totally count in the unavoidable category, because even if you eat the grapes on the day you bring them home, there are bad ones. :-D

The chinese take out I blame on baby cravings. heeheehee.. I would have finished it the next day, but that cold/flu thing that's running around made me pretty nauseous. Oh well.

SongbirdSisters said...

We've been going rounds with the crud, too and not been doing so well. Mostly half-eaten kid plates and leftovers that have gone bad. We have been doing better about what we are buying and planning meals around what is already in the fridge with maybe a couple of fresh additions.

Anonymous said...

we are pretty good about non-waste..cook only enough for 1 day of left overs and that is usually gone the next day....but there are a few bad onions in the house...

Anonymous said...

Bad week for us. Just got back from 12days working in CA to find that hubby didn't eat the leftovers that he had created while I was gone.
Due to the presence of mold-couldn't salvage any of it.
Made me very,very,very sad to have to bring it out to the compost pile.

>2 Cups of homemade chicken soup
>1 cup of homemade hummus
>2 Cups of spaghetti squash
>1/2 cup of strawberries (had been frozen)
>4 cups of homemade yogurt

Unknown said...

Great Post! Are you familiar with the blog Wasted Food (by J. Bloom) Good input there as well.

Regards,
Sustaino
www.sustaino.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

We've been on holiday for the last 3 weeks (lucky us, I know!). This has resulted in almost no wasted food for my partner and I. Unfamiliar food and portion sizes beyond their appetites meant rather a lot of waste for our kids though.
Anyway, we are home now (sigh), so it's back to the challenge.