Food Waste Audit Diary May 2019

AnimalTribe

themadvix wrote: »

Never sure about the nutritional content of carrot tops or lettuces regrown from stalk/tops - surely it can't be much? Happy to be proved wrong though!

I'd never thought about this, but they can be grown in compost just as easily. It's just easier getting kids to grow them in water.

tighteningthebelt

ariarnia wrote: »

Hi all.

Hoping someone can help me figure something out for lunches this week using the store cupboard

Paella type thing for sure. Could you freeze half if you're worried? Sorry for late response.

tighteningthebelt

Today's totals...

People 2 for breakfast, just me for lunch, 3 at teatime.

155g unavoidable (teabags, onion skins and trimmings, 2 pepper stalks and cores, tops and bottoms of carrots)
10g avoidable (pickings off new potatoes)

A huge percentage of my food waste is teabags today... like 50%, maybe more!!

I'm proud of eating up the cauliflower leaves for lunch today, they were already chopped up with the stalk, a little of onion and bacon. Sauteed, spiced up a bit, and then added 5 slices of chopped up pickled beetroot for the final couple of mins. Seemed like it needed it. worked well.

Fridge pretty clear now, ready for the shopping incoming tomorrow. If it wasn't already organised I reckon I could squeeze another day... it would be nutritionally questionable though!

bouicca21

I nearly didn’t read this thread as of course I think my mse ways mean I have virtually no food waste. Like others I hadn’t thought that ‘food waste’ was anything other than ‘food that is wasted’. I think the press and politicians think the same way - headlines about food waste tend to suggest the country is full of !!!!less people unable to shop/cook properly. I get why the unavoidable has to be included in the stats but maybe we should be thinking of terminology that makes it clear that ‘food waste’ is more than wasted food.

Now I know that I produce lots of food waste, albeit mostly in the unavoidable category - and practically all of that is fed to my worms, so i don’t think of it as waste. I have been splurging on oranges lately so have been throwing away lots of peel. I suppose I could candy it, but I don’t think I can be bothered, especially as I don’t like candied peel!

PS edited to add that I have just weighed the worms’ dinner - for various reasons I have a weeks worth to give them. 446 grams, mostly tea leaves, bit of pepper core, onion skins, courgette stems and some cauliflower stem (the leaves and softer bits of stem went into my cauliflower soup).

tighteningthebelt

bouicca21 wrote: »

I think the press and politicians think the same way - headlines about food waste tend to suggest the country is full of !!!!less people unable to shop/cook properly.

Quite!

I feel like I'm doing quite well, but if i do the sums projecting these figures over a full year I'll have made more than 100kg of food waste. Except I won't because I know about keeping pineapples now!!!

It's changed my perspective in an interesting way - I've started to feel a bit fiercer about the choices I do make ... I don't like candied peel either. But I do like tea, of course I could drink less, or have less visitors... shrugs. It'll be interesting to see if that feeling changes through the month.

Today I had the chance of a bunch of bananas for free... my immediate reaction was the skins will bump up the total waste, esp as they were quite ripe so it would be a freezing job = bulk skins. I've given myself a good talking to though, and i'm going to pick them up tomorrow... saving the edible flesh from landfill... save me some pennies! :rotfl:

themadvix

Thanks AnimalTribe - hadn't thought of that, might give it a try in compost.

This thread is definitely making me think - I was very careful not to chop any more than necessary off the rhubarb I pulled yesterday - and didn't retrim the stems when I got them into the kitchen (cut with a kitchen knife in the garden anyway).

I'm still pondering the unavoidable waste thing. I think if it's served its purpose - e.g. tea leaves, then it can't be considered waste, or certainly not waste to beat yourself up about, especially if it's composted.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

OK Weak 1.


Food caddy is half fool, with peel, fruit skins etc, loose tea. Six egg shells and a little of what Raffles did not eat. Yesterday we had chips from the chippy and this morning the local magpie finished them off.

tighteningthebelt

Today...
2 for breakfast, 2 for lunch, 3 for tea.
Shopping in.

115g unavoidable... As well as the usual I've included trimmings from bruised plum, bruised pepper and a couple of snips of carrot as they were sorted before they even went in the fridge, they could have been avoided, but not by me!!
10g avoidable due to being clumsy!

Timor

Mum used to make Queen of puddings with breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs eggs sugar make the cake base, then jam, then meringue (egg white) on top. Delicious use of leftover bread!

Suffolk_lass

bouicca21 wrote: »

I have been splurging on oranges lately so have been throwing away lots of peel. I suppose I could candy it, but I don’t think I can be bothered, especially as I don’t like candied peel!

I dry citrus peel and use it as a firelighter - a bit of newspaper and orange peel is great for getting a fire going. I save it, drying on the range then storing in an old sweet-tin - it is great and leaves only ash (which I use in the garden)