Little Daily Actions Feature - Preventing Food Waste at Home

I think once a week, this blog will focus on how we can care for creation through our little daily actions.  The phrase comes from Laudato Si'

“There is a nobility in the duty to care for creation through little daily actions, and it is wonderful how education can bring about real changes in lifestyle.”  Pope Francis – Laudato Si 211

(I stole that quote and layout from here.)

Right now on the facebook group Catholics for Zero Waste (CZW), we are going through a list of 11 ways to Stop Food Waste I just happened to find in a personal finance newsletter my father in law always give us.  He's really into that sort of thing.  Truthfully, I've never found it all that useful.  And it is true in this case as well.  A couple of the suggestions are good, but then most of them border on the absurd or just don't seem very practical.  Anyway, inspired by this, I thought I'd post my own, probably pretty obvious ways, to avoid food waste.   I am definitely a work in progress here, as I struggle with this.

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But before I begin, I do want to note that when we try to prevent food waste we are battling nature!  Food naturally begins to decay from the moment it is picked, harvested, butchered, processed, etc.  It's the nature of the beast!  So honestly I don't think we can ever have a 100% no waste system.

What we should have is regular ways to deal with unwanted or rotting food besides sending it to the landfill, dumping it down the garbage disposal or incinerating it.  Two ways to deal with this are:

1.  Feed it to animals such as chickens or pigs. 

If you have chickens or pigs, I'm jealous!  But also we should encourage restaurants and hotels to contract with farmers to deliver their food waste to them so that the food gets eaten instead of thrown out.  And this will save on big plastic bags of feed to the animals too!

2.  Compost.

Composting should be happening in every household.  Just like taking out the trash.  Everybody should have access to either municipal composting services, private composting services, neighborhood compost cooperative efforts, composting in your own kitchen or backyard, or places you can take your compost like farmers markets or grocery stores.  Everyone should be able to compost!  This is a goal we need to be working towards actively in our local communities.

You can go to this website to see if there is a composting service near you.  I don't think their database is all inclusive so if you don't see anything in your area, I encourage you to keep investigating.  If you want to start composting yourself, there is much information out there on the internet or in book form.  Go for it!

My ways to prevent food waste:

1.  Clean out your fridge every week.  This can take me all of 2 to 5 minutes.  I tend to do this on the night I put my compost out (I pay $25 a month for a weekly compost pick up.  I know I'm lucky!).

2.  Make leftovers the lunch default (either eaten at home or packed for lunch at work/school) or make one night a week the official 'leftover night.'  Even if it is just dibs and dabs added to the plate along with the main dish, you are using it up!

3.  Freeze any vegetable scraps to make broth with.  This will prevent you from having to buy vegetable broth.  Once I build up enough scraps, I throw them into my crock pot with water and lots of seasonings and let it cook all day.  Then I strain it and put it into big Ball canning jars (leave an inch or so of space at the top) and put into my freezer.  Luckily I do have an upright freezer in my garage).  I use this broth, and also chicken broth I make from bones, to cook rice and quinoa in, instead of just plain water.  Any time I need broth, these are my go to's.  It honestly doesn't take much effort at all if you have a slow cooker and I have stopped buying commercial broth in those vacuum packed boxes or cans.

4.  If you have too much of something and you can't deal with it right away, put it in the freezer!  I tend to forget this and wait too long.  As I say, I am a work in progress!

5.  If your parish does any food collection for local food banks or soup kitchens, stick a reminder up and clean out your pantry BEFORE foods expire.   I'm happy to report I am getting better at this one!