"If you’re interested in living a low waste lifestyle, the best place to start is your kitchen. We waste food every day, but there are easy ways to lessen that impact without having to become a totally different person.
Simple shifts in daily habits can make all the difference later down the line. Store your food properly so you don’t have to throw it away so quickly. Only buy what you need – make lists, plan meals, measure ingredients. Understand how expiration dates work so you don’t throw away food that’s still good to eat. Most importantly, look for little moments in your cooking process to revise. Below we’re sharing a few ways to reduce food waste…
Ten Ways to Reduce Food Waste Daily
STOCK UP ON STOCK
Keep veggie scraps and trimmings in a bag in the freezer when you cook. You can use this later as the base for a flavourful stock. Follow this simple recipe. You can incorporate the stock into various dishes — like grains and sauces — or you can sip it on its own.
DON’T STOP AT THE STEM
DON’T STOP AT THE STEM
Make sure you use as much of your fresh ingredients as possible when cooking. Broccoli stems taste great roasted. Beet leaves make for an excellent salad. Carrot tops can be used to make pesto. Even celery leaves can be candied for a sophisticated garnish.
MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE FREEZER
MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE FREEZER
There are so many things can be kept in the freezer so they stay fresh longer. Freeze pantry items like flour and nuts, wedges of hard cheese, pre-chopped veggies, and even soup saved in single serving portions.
SAVE CITRUS PEELS
SAVE CITRUS PEELS
Use the peels to make homemade countertop cleaner. The peels can also be candied and saved in the freezer to use later in baking, cocktails or as a flavourful homemade snack.
WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, FRITATTA
WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, FRITATTA
Basically, every restaurant leftover can be thrown into a frittata. Use leftover veggies or veggie scraps, wilting herbs, and uneaten dinner remnants to add texture and flavour.
HANDLE YOUR HERBS
When fresh herbs start to wilt, chop them up and blend them with grass-fed butter, roll it into a tube with reusable wax paper and slice off pieces when you cook. You can also mix them with oil and make an infusion that doesn’t really go bad (because oil is a natural preservative), or make a pesto or chimichurri and freeze the sauce in an ice cube tray to have single-serving portions available to cook with.
REPURPOSE YOUR FRUITS
REPURPOSE YOUR FRUITS
If you bought too much at the farmers market don’t wait for them to go bad; instead, find another way to use them. Make jam with berries, get into canning, or freeze them at peak ripeness and use in a smoothie. Frozen fruit can easily be taken from freezer to baking dish for a summery cobbler at any part of the year.
PICKLE IT
PICKLE IT
Use your extra veggies and pickle them, done right they will last a long time. The fermentation process makes pickles prime food for a healthy gut.
USE THOSE COFFEE GROUNDS
USE THOSE COFFEE GROUNDS
If you make coffee every morning, save the brewed coffee grounds in the freezer and make into a homemade body scrub. This recipe only requires two ingredients.
DONATE WHAT YOU DON’T USE
DONATE WHAT YOU DON’T USE
If kitchen DIY isn’t your thing, save your fruit and veggie scraps in a bag in the freezer, when it’s full donate to a community compost."
The above and all related links can be seen in the original article here
GROW YOUR OWN FOOD FROM SCRAPS
read more here
SOME FRITTATA RECIPE SUGGESTIONS:
Vegetable Frittata - more details here
Pea, mint and cheddar frittata - more details here
Weekend (or anyday) English Breakfast Frittata - more details here
Dear reader, you will find a variety of articles, studies etc. plus recent news/views and recipe/food idea suggestions within this blog, we hope something for everyone to read and enjoy ... but please note, not all may be suitable for you. If you may have any food allergies, or underlying health issues these must always be taken into account. If you are a diabetic and not sure how certain foods may affect your blood sugars, test is best, i.e. use your meter.
35 comments:
some really great ideas here. some i already do, some things that i will incorporate in the future!! thanks!!
Some good suggestions there.
This was very useful information.
Thank you so much for sharing 💮
Lots of great ideas. I use my coffee grounds to fertilize around my roses and around my herbs. I have my own compost bins (3 of them) and throw anything I let sit too long in my fridge into them.
As a vegetarian, I try to use as much of the item as possible. I don't ever have to worry about my compost, since I never have meat.
...and some people don't seem to know about leftovers.
Hooray for reducing/eliminating waste. Waste is an expensive habit to get into.
Freezing flour? Why?
Some very good suggestions in this article. We cut orange/lemon peelings into small cubes and leave in vinegar for two weeks or so. Then we drain the vinegar, add an equal amount of water and washing up liquid. Excellent spray to clean kitchen surfaces.
God bless.
Victor asks …
Freezing flour? Why?
It's a good question.
For many people, storing flour in the freezer is an effective means of preserving the quality and extending the shelf life of flour.
Flour is a pantry staple in many homes. All-purpose flour is still the go-to for many home cooks, but specialty flours such as gluten-free, whole-wheat, bread, and cake flours are gaining in popularity.
Some of these flours have a shorter shelf life than all-purpose flour and will go rancid within months.
Another concern for many households, especially in warmer climates, is the possibility for the flour to become infested with bugs.
Read more here
https://www.canyoufreezethis.com/can-you-freeze-flour/
Many thanks Victor for the tip about orange/lemon peelings.
All the best Jan
Part of Bleubeard and Elizabeth's comment above was …
"I use my coffee grounds to fertilize around my roses and around my herbs".
Many thanks for the tip :)
All the best Jan
These are all terrific -- some of which I already do -- but I'm especially grateful for the orange and citrus peels. Very good ideas all.
Great tips! I love to regrow scallions and celery and to plant garlic cloves for garlic chives. All these add a nice fresh touch to meals even in winter. :-)
Sounds like some good advice!!
Great tips. I try to use everything. But there's always room for improvement. Stock is indeed great to have in stock!
I usually buy small amounts as I don't live far from the shops, which means less waste. Thanks for your tips.
Thanks for sharing.
Good advice.
Some great tips, thanks for sharing.
My husband and I learned early in life never to waste food, so we've always followed many of these ideas, Jann. I save crushed egg shells and coffee grounds to place in my garden around trees and shrubs to enrich the soil, and I place citrus peels and use them to deodorize. our sink food disposal
Thanks for this great advice, no waste is a good thing.
This was a great post...it gave me things to think about.
These are some really great ideas, thanks for sharing this. I do a few of these things, not all. I see a couple I must try. Wishing you a wonderful weekend!
We have out own compost bin so that we can use it in our garden when it is ready. some good ideas here
No waste is important as we all try to live a little more lightly on the earth. We need to learn the habits of our grandmothers - and many of your tips are ones that my grandmothers used.
I froze food all the time when I was single, but now that I'm sharing a fridge, my stuff keeps getting lost!
These are all awesome ideas! Thank you! We do try to be very careful not to waste our food at our house. The body scrub is intriguing but our plumber friend says to never put coffee grounds into the drain because it will act like sand and clog your pipe.
Lots of good ideas here....The coffee grounds one I was not familiar with...I do make "refrigerator soup" when I need to use up vegetables. I used to think it needed a bouillon cube but then realized it is delicious without and surely healthier. Onion, celery, and carrots are always in this and sweet peppers and a bit of potato often. For some reason I don't like to add tomatoes and because my son is vegetarian I don't add meat. After all, it's being cooked to use up veggies and mushrooms before they go bad. It's a shame to waste food when so many people are hungry.
We sadly have no community compost (that I know of), instead...
Supermarkets are forced to throw away food and the bins are controlled so people cannot go through and say, hey, still good enough to me!
Slowly we get services that are allowed to take the food if the manager agrees.
It says "best before" ... it should say something like "at least, use your senses like smell and taste!" (meat not included).
Thanx for your response, Jan.
God bless.
Some really great advice here, Jan!
It really pains me to see how much food people waste...so sad, when there are so many starving in other parts of the world.
I try to cook only as much as we are going to eat, but if I do have, say, fruit or veg that becomes overripe before it is eaten, then I put it in our compost bin.
What I do find really upsetting, is all the out of date meat in supermarkets...those poor animals reared and slaughtered, only for their flesh to be wasted. It breaks my heart😢
Thank you so much for a thought (and emotion) provoking post...I sincerely wish the entire world would read and digest the great advice you have shared here!
Have a good afternoon!😊😊
Hugs xxx
Great tips.
There are some great tips here. We're still getting used to cooking for 2 rather than for 5, but we're getting there, and Neil never throws ANYTHING away - it's a standing joke that there's a dodo at the bottom of our freezer xx
Excellent post!!! Coffee grounds as a scrub?? Cool!
Great tips! I practice a lot of these. We hardly ever waste food around here.
great advice!
Good advice!
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