For the last several months, I've been working hard to waste less of our food, both the purchased and garden-grown. I've been trimming less off of vegetables and fruits, skipped the peeling of carrots and potatoes, used all but the thin papery skin and the actual root fibers/threads on onions, cut closer to the cores on apples, and basically trying to find ways to use all of the safe to eat portions of the fruits and vegetables that come into my kitchen. I'm also saving meat fat, and some of our cooking liquids, such as the starchy pasta cooking water, liquid from canned vegetables and drained frozen fruit, cooking liquid from veggies, and the liquid in which fruits, vegetables, and pickles are canned.
Despite doing all of the above, I wasn't sure if my efforts would be measurable.
So here's the interesting thing. On Sunday, my husband looked into the kitchen compost bucket and said that we're not putting as much into the bucket as we used to. He normally takes the kitchen bucket out to the composter in the backyard once per week. On Sunday, he commented that the bucket was only half full and could go another 4 to 6 days before needing to be dumped. He also said that it's been like this all summer. I take this as confirmation that we are indeed wasting less food in our house.
I have dual motives for my goal of wasting less food in my house. One, we want to offset the price increases and shrinking packages of purchased food. And secondly, if, as many experts have been warning, there is to be a food shortage coming, wasting less food spares more to go around for all of us.
Anyway, I just wanted to share. How about you? Are you trying to waste less in order to compensate for higher grocery or other costs?
