In this week's blog I want to wax philosophical a little and talk about a problem I just read about in We Hate to Waste. America throws away 40% of its food; almost half. Okay, you say you don't throw away that much. But think about the food that spoils, the peels and cuttings that aren't re-purposed either in compost, or other edible things like candied orange peels or stock for soup, the leftovers at restaurants (even the butter packets that you don't use - they get thrown out with everything else on the table), and you get my point.
Then there's the food that you don't have control over, like the "expired" food at grocery stores that is thrown out when it's at or near the stamped date. Some food does need to be consumed before a certain time, but others are still perfectly good when they're chucked. (There have been multiple occasions where I had to remove myself from grocery stores when a freezer broke and all. the. ice cream. thawed or not, had to be thrown out. All of it. blijdibiejbhdlkdj Or when I worked at Rite Aid and the milk that had expired the day before was zeroed out and poured down the drain, when it was still drinkable.)
With all this food going to waste, we also have 1 in 6 people who are food insecure in this country. Being food insecure means you're not sure where your next meal is going to come from - picture a pantry that has so little food in it that you can't make a healthy meal for you or your family. Or having no pantry at all.
Shouldn't we be able to divert the still-edible food that goes to waste to those who need it? Ah, but for fear...
A few years ago I was dating a guy who worked at one of the restaurants in a senior center. Each night after the buffet they would throw away trays and trays of leftover food. They always made too much and never tried to donate it. It drove me up the walls knowing how much they were wasting. At the time I was the secretary for the board of a food pantry and tried to work with my boyfriend to get the restaurant to donate the leftover food to the pantry. I know they would have served it the next day or froze it or something to give to the many (many, many, many, and increasing every day) families that needed it. But we were told that the food couldn't be donated - even if my boyfriend drove it over to the center himself - because of the liability. The risk of one person getting sick and suing was enough to throw away all of that food each and every day.
This drives me crazy.
So what do I do?
1) I hardly keep anything in my fridge. When my mom was here to visit for Christmas she looked at my fridge and said, "Wow, what a sparse life." I don't want a stocked fridge. I cook for one person and don't want or need a fridge overflowing with food that's just going to spoil.
2) I keep things in my pantry that I can whip up quickly but I try to restrain myself from buying things just because they're on sale and might be useful "sometime."
3) When I eat out, I take home EVERYTHING. I take the bread, the butter packets if I didn't use them already, the oyster crackers... But I have to be careful of what happened to Dana Frasz in the post from We Hate to Waste, linked above: she said when she started eating her friends' pizza crusts to discourage waste she wound up gaining 25 pounds.
So my suggestion is to only get one basket of bread if you're only going to be able to eat one basket-full at dinner. Or if you know you want to save room for your entree, ask the server not to bring the bread at all.
4) When I cook, I put leftovers either in the freezer or fridge and eat them for a couple days. I might have two entrees in my fridge at a time and alternate them, one for lunch and one for dinner. But if I know I have leftovers in the fridge I won't cook anything else until they're eaten so that they don't go bad.
5) I try to mindful of my schedule for the week. If I know I won't have time to eat at home in between work and meetings or will be eating out a lot, I don't buy or cook a lot of food because I know won't eat it! Or, if possible, I take extra food to eat for lunch and dinner.
6) I go to a lot of potlucks because I like eating with friends. There's usually something in my fridge or pantry that I can whip up and it's a wonderful feeling to bring a dish and know you used something of yours in a fun way. I also try to invite friends to have dinner with me when I make something big, like a pot of chili. I hope I can brighten someone's day by inviting them on the fly.
7) Although I like to read or watch movies while eating, I do try to eat mindfully so that I get the most out of my food. I know that the faster you eat, the less likely you are to feel satisfied. The slower you eat, the more you taste your food and the more time your stomach has to tell your mouth, "OK, I'm good, you can stop now." So I try to listen to my tummy and not be afraid to put food back into the fridge if I just can't eat that whole bowl of spaghetti or whatever.
8) I store foods properly and am not afraid of expiration dates! I go to the Internet before I throw things out mindlessly. I cut the moldy bit off the block of cheese instead of throwing out the entire hunk of cheese. (That's largely thanks to my grandmother, who lived on a farm in Minnesota during the Depression.) Although I didn't make it, I'm intrigued by this recipe for wilted lettuce soup that I found through Google. I love to use my 3-T method of cooking to get creative with what I have in the fridge.
You've got to eat three (ish) times a day - you must as well have fun while you're doing it!
For more information about how you can get involved with Food Shift, please click here.
How do you creatively re-use food scraps?
Happy munching!
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