One of my beliefs with trying to attain a more self sufficient life is that we cannot waste ANY food. With that in mind, plus my naturally thrifty, greedy nature I’ve been making more of an effort of late to reduce our food wastage.
We are pretty good. All our food waste except cooked bones gets either fed to hens, dogs, cat or the compost heap. However I think I should be making more of an effort for there to be less available for the animals. With this in mind I’m jumping on the Food Waste Reduction Challenge Bandwagon. Crunchy Chicken is to blame.
So for this month and this month only I’ll be noting down what we waste in an effort to get even more thrifty than usual. One great tip from a crunchy chicken commenter is to keep a box in the freezer for all the odd bits of veg leftover and make a monthly veggie stew. That’s something I’ll be doing, though it does mean the animals will get less veg!
I admit my motives are not as green as Crunchy Chicken’s. I agree its shameful that the world wastes so much food (50% in the US seems unbelievable) but there are so many people already trying to fight that battle. This is a more selfish quest to reduce waste. But then I think composting everything via hens, hounds and heap is pretty green already. I’m going from the spend less cash and use less resources angle. Still the results should be the same. Less food produced for no good reason.
The first step will be to check cupboards and fridge tonight and make sure we consume anything approaching the end of its ‘nice to eat’ period. I’m sure I’ll be freezing and preserving even more than usual but that’s good – it means we can have lazier, easier to prepare suppers further down the line.
So anyway I’ll be reporting back each week to see how easy or difficult it is. I don’t aim for food waste reduction. My goal is food waste elimination. I don’t think we’ll mange that straight away but its always good to aim high.
For a more self sufficient future
Thank you for aiming to reduce your waste of food. But please keep in mind the importance of food nutrition for yourself and your family. As food ages it loses nutrition value. Freezing and canning food also reduces it’s nutritional value. Reducing food waste is important but you don’t want your actions cause you consume food of lower health value. Sometimes it is best to consider composting older food.
Nutritional Effects of Food Processing – NutritionData.com – http://www.nutritiondata.com/topics/processing
Make sure to mark all freezer containers with dates and check your freezer along with your fridge before meal planning.
A Love for Horses – Joni Solis’s last blog post..Manure Management and Composting Programs
Hi Joni,
Yes you’re right eating food when you get the best from it nutrient wise is definitely the way to go. We’re lucky to eat a lot of our veg straight from the plot so it’s in peak condition.
Oh and labelling is a rule in our house – its so frustrating to defrost one thing thinking its another!