Food Waste Friday

For this Food Waste Friday I thought I would address the other side of Food Waste (besides the nastiness below). The one that doesn't include letting a peach rot on you counter.

Gluttony.

Gluttony is a serious issue in the United States. We eat when we know we are full or not hungry at all. That's pure waste. The money spent on food we eat when we aren't hungry could have been saved for a great trip out of town or compounded on a good quality cheese. Instead we look for the cheapest we can find so we can get more food to snack on during reruns on TV. I was watching a small snippet of a weight loss TV show and it claimed that in the overweight community there are more obese people that just overweight people! This is truly amazing to me. I solely put the blame on large scale farming.

Modern Americans actually spend less of their income on food than they did 50 or so years ago. However, they eat about quadruple the amount of meat and cheese. We also have tons of cheap junk food readily available in cute colorful packaging that everyone loves to pop open (remember the Pringles commercials from the 90s).


I could go on, but the doom and gloom of it all you've heard a million times. Instead I am going to focus on what we can strive to do.

1. Eat in season: Preferably with produce from your local farms, but if that's not an option learn what vegetables are in season. Tip: I cook in season! So just about any of the produce I am currently writing about is good to go!

2. Eat just what you need: Cook and eat just what you need for one meal. This will eliminate the temptation for seconds or thirds when you aren't really hungry. Lucky for you, most of the recipes featured on this blog are either perfectly portions or can easily be scaled down!

3. Support Local Farms: In order to rebuild a food system that sustains our bodies health, we have got to quit contributing to large scale productions of food. Even if you can't afford to eat a complete local diet, find one way you can support a local farmer. Perhaps you buy local meat once or two a week/month. Or maybe you could buy farm fresh eggs. Heck, fall is a great time to support local farms by checking out pumpkin patches and apple orchards!


Ok really... here is my actual food waste. No so great!

One head of butter lettuce
2 tiny eggplants (they were each smaller than my fist)
1 single stalk of green onion
1/4 package of fresh basil (it wasn't so fresh anymore)
Leftover sushi
1 Tomato
leftover heavy whipping cream
Spoiled milk