Reduce Food Waste – Week One

Last week I confirmed that Family Dirty Boots would be jumping on the ‘reduce food waste‘ bandwagon.  I am going to be perfectly honest and admit I’m really surprised how much food we have in the house, but don’t consume ourselves..

Compared to our previous city life our food wastage is tiny.  All that we don’t eat goes into dogs, cats, hens or the compost heap.  Cooked bones are the only food item we send to landfill and even those are boiled down for stock first.  However, when you actually start taking note of all the little bits and bobs that could be consumed by us humans, but actually get fed to the animals it is shocking.

Week One Success – Items we Nearly Wasted:

• 1/2 a kilo of chestnuts.  I knew we wouldn’t get around to roasting the rest of these so I’ve boiled, peeled and frozen them to be quick additions to meals (as purees, stuffing or just with Brussels sprouts).
• 30 oranges.  Past their best for marmalade purposes, but juiced and consumed.
• Egg shells.  These don’t really count as food waste as they are never eaten but this week we have baked and ground them up to add to hen and dog feed as a calcium boost.  Also reducing the need to purchase oyster shell for the hens.
• Vegetables.  I’m happy to report we just don’t seem to waste any.  I thought we’d have the odd few carrots, portion of cauli or whatever that we’d need to freeze for a veggie stew.  But so far, whatever veg we have, we eat.
• Leftovers.  Lunch sized portions of chilli and curry went into the freezer quickly.  Similarly a few meals were produced using portions of roasted pork and lamb which had been stashed away in the deep freeze last month.

Week One – Failures – Food we Did Waste

• Six pears and two oranges.  These spoiled seemingly overnight so went to the hens.  Must make more of an effort to consume fruit quickly.
• 1/4 portion of shepherds pie.  It just wasn’t enough for a full lunch so it went to the dogs.  They were happy.  I need to tweak my portion sizes!
• 1/2 jar of cannelloni beans.  Left in the fridge too long – went to the hens.
• 1/4 pint of milk.  Similarly left in the fridge too long – went to the hens.
• 2 portions of lamb casserole.  Normally I’d freeze this type of thing, but the truth is it really wasn’t very nice and I know I’d never have defrosted it again as never want to eat any more of it.  So again, the dogs were happy.
• Potato peelings and outer tough cabbage leaves.  Boiled up for dogs and hens.  Not sure if this is success or failure.  We had mashed potatoes so were never going to eat the skins.  Should I have frozen them for the baked spicy potato skins of the future?  But this does save us a small amount of hen and dog feed.  Don’t worry they just get this for the occasional breakfast.

This first week as shown me that though we send minimal food to landfill we still waste foodstuffs.  I don’t want to be responsible for wasted food production.   I will continue, and work harder to prevent this house causing more resources to be wasted.  Keeping a proper note of things shows you much more than just assuming.  I thought we’d waste more veg and less of everything else!

I keep changing my mind about how well or badly I feel we’re doing.

One of the main issues for us is always fruit.  It looks pretty, we know its good for us, but we have to make more of an effort to get around to eating it.

The other thing is part-meals and part-jars such as the cannelloni beans.  I have to decide whether to have them for lunch the next day or freeze them.  If I can’t decide the food is more likely to be wasted.  So any part-meals or part-jars are now put in the fridge (once cold) overnight and a decision made the next morning.  They are to be consumed that day or frozen.  If I think we’ll eat something in two days time it is much more likely to be wasted.  So I ask myself will we eat it today?  If not, its off to the deep-freeze.

So all in all, for week one I think its a definite ‘Could try harder’.  So I will try harder, probably to the dismay of the animals.

For a more self sufficient future