Food Waste In America

 So, I thought the main issue with food waste in the US was at the production and processing phases.  I watched a documentary on the youtubes (forgot which one...it was running in the background while I was doing something) 40% happens at HOME after we pay for it and bring it to the house with the intention of eating it.  CRIPES!!!!  That means 40% of the average American grocery (the food bits, not the TP which is no longer wasted EVER) is wasted as well as the food.

Cutting food waste, any waste but today is the food waste rant, is cutting the budget so you have that $$ to spend on sh*t you enjoy.  Sh*t like not working forever because you have enough savings to retire early.

So, I am refocused on cutting food waste.  I don't waste a ton.  I even have started choosing squash not only for flavor but for meat to hide ratio...though I need some hide for the worm bin and the chickens.  

Actual methods to cut waste:

1) Know how to store food.   There are guides all over the internet.  Do a search and print out a couple.  Put them on the door of the fridge and/or pantry or wherever you will see it.  Maybe next to the toilet so you can grab it and read it when your phone runs out of batteries and you can't text people while you poo.  Also, if you write the date you opened something on the package, and do so BIG, you'll know at a glance what is getting to more than a week or two out and should be eaten ASAP.  Finally, smell stuff.  Learn what it smells like when it's good.  When it smells different (and is covered with what I like to call "advanced composting substance"), time to compost it.  

2) Know how to cook.  You don't have to be a chef, just learn that to make soup you start by chopping and frying an onion.  To make eggs, you start with eggs and a pan of water or a skillet.  To make a stir fry, start with hot oil and chopped ingredients...and remember to STIR.  One of my old roommates remembered the fry part, but not the STIR part and we had an almost-fire with the grease.  Stir it.   If you want a roast or a roasted something like chicken, turn on the oven and make sure the meat is thawed.  Know that hard veggies take longer to cook than floppy veggies.  Cut the big ones smaller or start them cooking earlier.  A good place to start is at the library with a SIMPLE cookbook.  Or some youtubes if you have free internet access.  

3) Buy what you actually eat, not aspirational things like "I WILL switch directly from cap'n crunch just berries to plain dry oats with bitter melon".  If you eat cap'n crunch, well, you're wasting money but at least you're not also wasting the nuclear power plant by-product I suspect is the main ingredient in that crap'n crunch (which is delicious).

4) Eat what you bought.  Go through the fridge and cupboard BEFORE you go shopping.  Figure out a few things you can make, that you will actually eat, from what you have.  Make at least one of them and put it in the front of the fridge or wherever it will be OK and you will see it.  If you see it, you will eat it. 

5) Use up as much of the meat/fruit/veg/whatever as you can.  Limit the amount you peel, scrap, cut and chuck, even into the compost.  

Have you noticed how you didn't have to  buy anything to do those things?  

Here are a few concrete ways to avoid food waste on specific items.

Let's start with squash and melons.  SAVE THE DAMN SEEDS.  I keep a few to plant but MOSTLY I toast and eat them.  If you run a wood stove, throw a handful on top and eat them.  Put them on salad, on soup, in that trail mix you made or the homemade granola/protein bars.  I don't bother shelling the seeds, eat the shell and all.  So far no digestive issues with that.  Once dry, they save for ages in a jar.

How to save the damn squash/melon seeds:

Gut the squash (pumpkin, butternut, zucchini, cantaloupe, whatever) using your favorite method.  Put the guts in a bowl that will hold twice the volume of the guts (approximately, use the bowl you have, pans count as bowls).  Put water in until the guts are covered.  Do whatever you're doing with the squash/melon.  Come back a while later, same day, next day...not much more than that.  Stick your hands in there and squeeze the seeds to separate them from the guts, not to break the seeds.   Pull out the guts and seeds separately.  The guts go to chickens or compost.  The seeds to out on paper or a kitchen towel to dry.  I like a towel because the seeds don't have to be turned to avoid paper stickage.

Let them get SUPER dry.  Takes a day or two.  If you have a garden area, save a couple of seeds to plant.  The rest, you can put in a jar as is if they are really dry.  Or, toast right away, let them cool, and then put in a jar with a tight lid.  If you put them in hot, there will be condensation and mold.  Eat.

You can toast them in an oven, on top of a woodstove, in a dry skillet over low heat.  You'll know they are toasted when they look a bit brownish and smell good.  And a few will pop open.

People pay a mint for pumpkin seeds at the store.  Pumpkins are squash.  It's all seeds.  All are delicious and nutritious.

Perhaps potatoes, carrots, apples and other peelable things with edible peels are next.  DO NOT PEEL THEM.  Wash them.  Use a veggie scrubber. This is the same as your dish scrubber but new.  When it won't work on veggies anymore, then it's a dish scrubber.  (when it won't work on dishes...floor, then toilet, then trash).  Or, use a clean dish cloth.  or the edge of a spoon, back of a knife...or...wait for it...YOUR HANDS.  Yes, you can rub the dirt off potatoes with your hands.  Carrots don't have skin so you're just peeling off perfectly good carrot.  I scrub them and if they are pretty grubby, use the back of a knife to scrape off the dirty bit with minimal carrot loss.  I do this outside (because carrot bits go all over) and the chickens think it's raining treats.  Apples...the peels do not interfere with apple enjoyment.  Same with pears.  If you making apple sauce or butter (or pear sauce/butter), you can dice small and enjoy the red or green flecks in the final product, or use a stick blender if you already own it and do the dicing later.  Obviously any cores/seeds go in compost or to the chickens or out for birds to eat.  If you insist on peeling apples, sprinkle the inside of the peel bits with cinnamon and bake them along with the pie or whatever it is you peeled the apples for.  Or add them to a squash soup that you are going to blenderize with the blender you already own (stick, regular, food processor).  If you really really MUST peel that damn potato, at least put some seasoning on the peel and bake it like chips.  People pay good money for potato skins at restaurants.

And now, meat stuff.  Buy the right meat.  You can't use stew meat in a fast cooked dish because stew meat is tough.  Yes, it is cheap, but it needs long slow wet cooking to be decent.  If you insist on it for a non-stew dish, you'll need to chop it to a pulp, at which point, just buy the burger.  Buy only what you need.  Freeze it, fridge it, or cook it asap.  If you cook it and don't eat it, chop it up and freeze it in the soup container (see below).  Or freeze it in single portions and LABEL IT.  Put the purchase date and the freeze/fridge/cook date on it.  Labeling is your friend.   When you cut the fat off pork, that's good for frying stuff.  If you don't like the fat, don't bring it home.  Buy a leaner cut.  When you fry meat, save the grease.  You can cook in bacon grease, duck fat, beef grease, almost any grease.  If you don't want to eat it, and it's not tooooo salty, there are recipes for suet type bird food blocks you can make with it.  If you still don't want to do that, rethink how much grease and fat you are bringing into the house.    Save the bones!  Bird carcasses like chicken and turkey are great for soup base.  Put those either in water and boil up right away, or in the freezer to flavor up the scrap soup you're going to have in a bit.  To save waste on a bird carcass:  eat the skin.  If you hate the skin, why did you bring it home?  If you must have the skin and not eat it, dice it up and bake it hard as pet treats.  OK, back to the carcass:  wash your hands and use them to pick off every bit of meat from those bones.  Save that separate from the bones.   Use the bones to make a simple broth by boiling them up.  If you have something in the oven, put the bones in a pan, with a bit of that skin you don't want to eat, that can go in the oven, cover with water and let it go for as long as you can.  You can do it on top of the stove, in a crock pot, pressure cooker whatever.  The basic thing is bones + water + heat + time.  People pay good money for bone broth.  It is the juice from boiling bones.  Don't be frightened when you take it out, let it cool, remove the bones (you can compost them now or even....throw them out if you must...burying them in the garden provides years of minerals to your plants so maybe do that) and chill the broth.  It will thicken.  That's the collagen people are paying money for in powders and bone broths.  It's good for you.  You may not have to buy all that glucosamine anymore if you use this in your scrap soup.

What's this soup container and scrap soup we've been reading so much about lately (in this very blog post)?  It's what you think it is.  If you have a fridge and/or freezer, then get a container...one that you already own.  Perhaps a margarine tub or ice cream bucket or peanut butter jar.  If you have a family of 20, a big container or a few containers is good.  If you live alone, then a container that holds a few cups (I was going to say a pint but do non-canners even know what that is outside hipster beer bars?)   Make sure the container is clean, still has structural integrity, and a tight fitting lid.  If you are a canner, a large mouth pint or quart jar will work.  I avoid metal as some things going in will be acidic but you do you. Find an obvious spot in the fridge or freezer to put the container.  Easy to access daily.  

How to use it:  put food scraps in it after meals.  Have a bit more chopped onion than you need? Put it in the soup container.  Find one lone garlic clove starting to get soft?  Take the paper skin off and put the clove in the container.  Bit of left over salad with no dressing?  Into the container.  Bit of left over salad with dressing?  Rinse the dressing off (in the collander you already own or just in the bowl and then drain by holding the salad in the bowl with your hand) and put it into the container. You rinse off the dressing because ranch does not go with everything.  If it's a vinaigrette, you might leave it.  Don't worry, even lettuce is fine in soup.  Don't put cheese or big hunks of pure fat or egg in the container.  These don't freeze well and interfere with soup texture. Bits of bacon, that last pork chop no one ate...dice those up and put them in the container. Three pieces of salami?  Go ahead, put it in the container.  Zucchini boat to far?  Chop and put in the container.  Did you make spaghetti and there is like a half serving of sauce and 10 noodles left?  Those go in the container.  Apples and pears do ok in most soups.  So a slice or two of those will be fine.  Left over rice and other grains...same thing.  When the container is full, look at it.  If there is no onion or garlic or chives or other oniony/garlicy/chive thing in there, you MIGHT want to fry a bit of one of those in the soup pan before you dump the container contents in.  Or not.  Just dump the container contents into a pan big enough to hold them, about an hour before you want to eat.  Add water ...or some of that delicious bone broth you made...or both.  And that last tablespoon of tomato paste you just noticed in a can at the back of the fridge.  Bring to a boil, lower the temp to a simmer.  Put a lid on it.  Let it simmer until it is time to eat.  It will work great in a crock pot or in a pan in the oven if you are making biscuits to go with it. 

Taste it.  If it is bland, put some in a bowl and try a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice if you have it.  It will perk up anything.  Add salt, pepper, spices to taste. Usually whatever you threw in the container has enough seasoning to see you through.

Once you sort the seasonings out, put it in bowls and enjoy.