I learned about food waste mostly through working with a food rescue. The work inspired me so much that I wrote a picture book about it to share with children that I just published this week! There are so many ways to reduce food waste and food rescues are a brilliant step to help with the food waste cycle and food insecurity in communities. If you want to check out the rescue or the story, you can at my website: https://ginasoldano.com/november-2023-nias-rescue-box-events/ Thank you for sharing about food waste with others!
I never thought about looking at food waste as an indicator that I may be wishing for a different lifestyle than I'm (usually) willing to give my energy to. Healthy eating is hard work but I have been working on the food waste thing a lot. I freeze food before it goes bad, and make a really good spread by cooking down the leaves and stems of vegetables with some garlic (delicious on bread!). Reading cookbooks and food essays from the WWII and depression eras is a great place to find recipes to use every bit of what you buy.
It's incredible to read the impact food waste has! My city (maybe county?) passed legislation last year that requires all residents to have a food waste container and use that instead of the trash. We already composted in my house, but it was great to see a wide effort being made. Interesting to see the resistance though... how reflexive people are to change. Slow and steady, I suppose.
Thank you for talking about this. Small actions by many make a huge difference. I buy a lot of fresh lettuce for salads. I have noticed if I put a paper towels or napkin in the container I store it in, it last longer. Not sure of the science of this, yet it works.
We do a lot on the food front, especially since we moved to our small farm:
1. We grow the majority of the veggies, milk, eggs, meat we eat and try to buy the rest at farmers' markets...
2. We do still buy from grocery stores, and we try to buy stuff that's marked down or almost expired because we know that tends to end up thrown out (assuming we know we will eat it soon)
3. Everything we can't eat goes to the chickens - they get a lot of the veggies we grow that end up being overgrown or eaten by caterpillars, etc.
4. Anything that can't be fed to chickens gets composted, and we use our compost to grow more food
5. We do our best to preserve the stuff we grow - like tomato sauce, freezing stuff, dehydrating, etc. Having a chest freezer is not necessarily the most eco-friendly energy-wise, but it's less transport of stuff from far away places so I'm hoping it cancels things out.
I think even growing a small garden (that's how we started!) changes how you look at food and can lead to iterative changes that really add up. :)
Great essay, Jen! I purchase less lettuce these days, more sprouts. Sweet pea, broccoli and this last time because I couldn't find either, I purchased alfalfa that surprisingly didn't rot in two days. I find it's easy to eat a handful of these when I don't have the time or inclination to make a full salad. And they taste great on sandwiches.
I think we throw away a lot of veggies if they're not quite a crisp as when we first bought them, but they're still good! You can chop them up and stir fry them.
I use a little olive oil ,or sesame oil, if I know I'm going to use them in specific Asian dishes later. You can stir fry any greens, or throw them in soups, including those in the lettuce family. In a pinch, I've done that. Also great to combine them with more bitter greens like dandelion leaves.
It's nice to have stir fried your veggies once in the week, and then just add them to soup, or other dishes as the week goes on. Makes me more inclined to eat healthy. If I have a lot of veggies, I'll stir fry different combinations for variety. The trick is to not over fry them, then they don't get soggier when you toss them in another dish.
It takes very little time to do this. As I live alone, having food go bad on me happens very easily, and I don't have the funds to replace them, along with the ethics of food waste. So yeah, it pays on a lot of levels to not be wasteful!
I learned about food waste mostly through working with a food rescue. The work inspired me so much that I wrote a picture book about it to share with children that I just published this week! There are so many ways to reduce food waste and food rescues are a brilliant step to help with the food waste cycle and food insecurity in communities. If you want to check out the rescue or the story, you can at my website: https://ginasoldano.com/november-2023-nias-rescue-box-events/ Thank you for sharing about food waste with others!
that is so awesome!
what a great idea!!
I never thought about looking at food waste as an indicator that I may be wishing for a different lifestyle than I'm (usually) willing to give my energy to. Healthy eating is hard work but I have been working on the food waste thing a lot. I freeze food before it goes bad, and make a really good spread by cooking down the leaves and stems of vegetables with some garlic (delicious on bread!). Reading cookbooks and food essays from the WWII and depression eras is a great place to find recipes to use every bit of what you buy.
Love that approach and also yes to channel my dad and his family who all lived through the depression and the war.
It's incredible to read the impact food waste has! My city (maybe county?) passed legislation last year that requires all residents to have a food waste container and use that instead of the trash. We already composted in my house, but it was great to see a wide effort being made. Interesting to see the resistance though... how reflexive people are to change. Slow and steady, I suppose.
thats's awesome! no food waste in the trash -- so excellent!!
Thank you for talking about this. Small actions by many make a huge difference. I buy a lot of fresh lettuce for salads. I have noticed if I put a paper towels or napkin in the container I store it in, it last longer. Not sure of the science of this, yet it works.
great tip! here's for the paper towel win!
This is soooo good! Thank you for sharing it!
We do a lot on the food front, especially since we moved to our small farm:
1. We grow the majority of the veggies, milk, eggs, meat we eat and try to buy the rest at farmers' markets...
2. We do still buy from grocery stores, and we try to buy stuff that's marked down or almost expired because we know that tends to end up thrown out (assuming we know we will eat it soon)
3. Everything we can't eat goes to the chickens - they get a lot of the veggies we grow that end up being overgrown or eaten by caterpillars, etc.
4. Anything that can't be fed to chickens gets composted, and we use our compost to grow more food
5. We do our best to preserve the stuff we grow - like tomato sauce, freezing stuff, dehydrating, etc. Having a chest freezer is not necessarily the most eco-friendly energy-wise, but it's less transport of stuff from far away places so I'm hoping it cancels things out.
I think even growing a small garden (that's how we started!) changes how you look at food and can lead to iterative changes that really add up. :)
Great essay, Jen! I purchase less lettuce these days, more sprouts. Sweet pea, broccoli and this last time because I couldn't find either, I purchased alfalfa that surprisingly didn't rot in two days. I find it's easy to eat a handful of these when I don't have the time or inclination to make a full salad. And they taste great on sandwiches.
I think we throw away a lot of veggies if they're not quite a crisp as when we first bought them, but they're still good! You can chop them up and stir fry them.
I use a little olive oil ,or sesame oil, if I know I'm going to use them in specific Asian dishes later. You can stir fry any greens, or throw them in soups, including those in the lettuce family. In a pinch, I've done that. Also great to combine them with more bitter greens like dandelion leaves.
It's nice to have stir fried your veggies once in the week, and then just add them to soup, or other dishes as the week goes on. Makes me more inclined to eat healthy. If I have a lot of veggies, I'll stir fry different combinations for variety. The trick is to not over fry them, then they don't get soggier when you toss them in another dish.
It takes very little time to do this. As I live alone, having food go bad on me happens very easily, and I don't have the funds to replace them, along with the ethics of food waste. So yeah, it pays on a lot of levels to not be wasteful!