Anyways, I've not summoned the courage to join one of her challenges until now.
reduce the amount of food you waste.
I can do that. In fact, I'm cheating a bit here because I've been trying to reduce my food waste already.
I also have to give credit to Kristen at The Frugal Girl blog for first making me think about my food waste as a financial issue. She takes pics of her wasted food and posts it on Fridays. Read her blog too!
Not only do I want to reduce my food waste for thrifty reasons, I also want to reduce food waste for environmental reasons. Here's where Crunchy enlightened me. A bunch of food waste (50% edible!) sits in landfills giving off methane like a motha. Also, when you throw away your food, you waste energy...all the energy that it took to grow, harvest, transport, package that food.
I never really thought of it that way.
With this in mind, here's an example of what I did this week to reduce my food waste:
On Monday, I cooked a delicious (if I do say so myself) Veggie Chili for Meatless Monday. I made much more than needed for me, my husband, and 3 yr old. I put half of the leftover chili in the freezer. On Tuesday, I made Spaghetti Marinara...and acrued more leftovers in the fridge. On Wednesday, I made pizza dough from scratch and we enjoyed homeade pizza. On Thursday, I assembled an awesome Chili Pasta dinner out of the leftover chili (Monday), pasta (Tuesday), and mozzerella (Wednesday). And I will easily find something to do with my leftover marinara sauce...maybe throw in a few meatballs and make meatball subs.
I will tackle fresh produce and other perishibles in another post. Perhaps I'll take some pics of my waste (a la The Frugal Girl) on the way out to the compost pile.
Anyone care to join me on this challenge? Anyone care to share creative ways that you reduce food waste? I'd love any help I can get!
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2 comments:
Ok, so i'm a little behind on reading your blog. Not because it is not interesting but because I think I have ADD and it is hard for me to stay focused - Or perhaps because I have little monkeys that keep me pretty busy. :) Anyway, I woke up this morning thinking about you and my desire to catch up on your blog. It is wonderfully amusing, informative and witty. I love it. I admire your perserverance and regret giving up on my own blog. I know February is long gone but the ideas in this post can be done year long. It's great to have a reminder to be less wasteful, I am definitely with you. I feel like this comment is exceeding the space limit so I can't type all of the things I do to be less wasteful here, but will share them with you one day. Meanwhile, I checked a DVD out of the library & watched w/the girls recently, Green Planet production, Bill Nye's Stuff Happens, trying to raise "green" girls. :) They have a compostable toilet in the movie, it's awesome!
Aww! Thanks for reading, Michelle! I was inspired by your lovely blog, and that's why I started my own. Sooo wish we lived closer!
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