Food Waste

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! As one year ends and another begins it is a good time for reflection and personal plans set in place to make the new year better than the one we are leaving.

The First thing that comes to mind for me is the amount of food I waste. I have been thinking about this since last summer when I had one of the most productive vegetable gardens I have ever had. Unfortunately, it was also the most food I have ever wasted. It is hard when there are just two of us here and many nights, when John is working, I eat alone. I gave quite a bit away but it is hard to find places for it to go or at least it takes alot of energy. I don't have a separate freezer and I don't take the time to freeze or can much of the extra. I wish I could just gather it up and take it to a vegetable processing facility ( like a meat processing facility) and go back and pick it up with some of it put into sauce, some into paste, some into vegetable bouillon, some into soup, some into stew, and some in a form that could go to the food pantry.

In the October issue of Ode Magazine there was an article about Jonathan Bloom and his interest in food waste. In the article it said that "Americans waste at least 40 percent of all edible food raised, grown, bought, or sold in the country". Bloom is launching a campaign to try to cut down on waste which he is calling "Waste-Not Wednesday". He is asking people to not waste food one day a week hoping it will make people more aware of the amount of food they waste.

For Christmas, Lyndy gave me some reusable bags to keep vegetables fresher longer. One lets gasses out, one keeps moisture in and I forget what the other does. The package lists which vegetable goes in what type bag but it doesn't list many of the vegetables so I will have to see if there is more info on their website. Hopefully this will help keep the waste down.

Shortly after our first snowfall, when I had been feeding the animals hay for only a short time, I noticed how much they waste. They pick out the green tender grasses and leave the coarser blades. I keep thinking if I don't give them the hay as often they will eat the less desirable but they don't. When I do give them fresh hay they attack it like they are starving. I need to find out how to resolve this. Maybe I will adopt "Waste- Not Wednesday" for them.