50 Ways to Never Waste Food Again

[Ian David]

50 Ways to Never Waste Food Again
Simple ideas that make a big difference in your budget and help save resources too.

"Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without" is a favorite adage in both frugal and green circles, and it is something I strive to live by. One of the best ways to "use it up" is to think differently about our food and ways to avoid wasting it. Lloyd wrote a great post a while back about the statistics for how much food we waste in the U.S., and the numbers are, frankly, appalling. On average, we waste 14% of our food purchases per year, and the average American family throws out over $600 of fruit per year. Most of the food we waste is due to spoilage; we're buying too much and using too little of it.

We've all had it happen: half the loaf of bread goes stale because no one wants to eat sandwiches today, and the grapes we bought as healthy snacks for the kids' lunches languish in the crisper. With a little creativity, and an eye toward vanquishing waste in our lives, we can make use of more of our food before it goes to waste. Here are a few ideas for you.

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2. Don't toss those trimmed ends from onions, carrots, celery, or peppers. Store them in your freezer, and once you have a good amount saved up, add them to a large pot with a few cups of water and make homemade vegetable broth. This is also a great use for cabbage cores and corn cobs.

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8. Use up tomatoes before they go bad by drying them in the oven. You can then store them in olive oil in the refrigerator (if you plan on using them within a week) or in the freezer.

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19. Don't throw out those watermelon rinds! Pickled watermelon rind is a pretty tasty treat.

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37. Eggs can be frozen. Break them, mix the yolks and whites together, and pour into an ice cube tray. Two frozen egg cubes is the equivalent of one large egg.

More:
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/ways-avoid-waste-food.html

[izquierdista]

1. #51

Feed it to your chickens. They'll turn it into tomorrow's omelet.

[4_TN_TITANS]

9. That's our solution - chickens!

If the dogs, cats, rabbit, gecko, or goats won't eat it, the chickens are happy to oblige! As you might guess, nothing goes to waste at our house.

[hobbit709]

2. That's assuming that:

1. You have room in the freezer
2. You like to eat pickled watermelon rinds or even watermelon.
3. You like your eggs always scrambled
4. You have leftover coffee-I am a caffeine-based lifeform.

[ret5hd]

3. 2. If you don't like watermelon, you prolly won't have this problem, will you?

3. I don't think the intent was for you to come home from the store and start scrambling your eggs and freezing them. You do it to the eggs that might go old.

4. Well then, no problem of waste, huh?

And as for 1, lucky you.

[vadawg]

4. i went here expectig to see some new or good ideas, nothing really jumped out at me

seems like a lot of the old school common sense ideas like drying and canning etc etc, filled out with some really dumb stuff is taking different cheeses to make mac n cheese WTF as iff no one would ever think of that...

[Whisp]

5. good post, thanks.

Thanksgiving coming up for some of you and if you have leftover turkey, which there usually is always some around for days and days - cut up some of the good parts for sandwiches and freeze them for another time.

and don't throw that carcass away, makes for a wonderful soup.

soup soup soup, wonderful soup. Invest in a breadmaker (you can find them in thrift stores, etc. ) and have fresh bread with your soups. mmmmm. I can't eat store bought any more, it tastes like chemicals. Wonderbread is especially awful/gross.

[PDJane]

6. Wonderbread is like eating foam...........

Although I have bought specialty breads lately, I don't eat the mass-produced stuff. It's gross.

I can and do make my own bread; it is much healthier, and I can control the salt and sugar content.

[GoCubsGo]

7. #32b

Ditto for shrimp, crab, lobster shells and fish parts. They make great seafood stock. I always save and freeze my shrimp shells after I peel them. Once I get a big bag of them, I boil them up for stock for seafood-based soups.

I have no problem buying marked down meats, breads and produce when I can find that which isn't already starting to rot. I use them for stocks and bread crumbs. Milk that's about to go out of date can be frozen in smaller quantities and thawed as needed.

Thanks for this article. We're starting to see great deals on pears and apples around here, and I was given a dehydrator. This reminded me to pull it out of the closet and use it! I love dried fruit! I need to be drying veggies, too...

[Warpy]

8. Mulligan Stew

is what every hobo knows how to do. You get veggie trimmings, discarded fast food, anything a kind restaurant owner gives you at closing time, whatever you can find. You portion it out to tin cans with water, build a fire, and let it boil for an hour or so. What you get won't be a taste treat, but it will keep you alive without making you sick.

It's a way of making questionable foods from questionable sources safe to eat.

People who still have homes can make a high class variation called "clean out the fridge stew." It's done with the same culinary principles and might have dried herbs added to make it a bit more palatable.