To paraphrase Kingsolver: Bittman, Minimalist, Awesome.
I was very excited to see Mark Bittman’s piece on freezers as a way to prolong food and avoid waste. And after reading it, I was not disappointed.
I love that he used the words “reduce food waste” in his opening paragraph. And that the article is so user-friendly. Basically, Bittman, a.k.a. The Minimalist, advises readers to use the freezer in two ways: Â
The first: take raw ingredients you have too much of — or whose life you simply wish to prolong — and freeze them. The second: take things you’ve already cooked — basics like stock, beans, grains and the like, or fully cooked dishes — and freeze them.
Also, Bittman tells us to think of frozen food as being in “suspended animation.” In other words, you’re basically delaying food’s decay. But that only lasts so long, thus:
Use what you freeze, within weeks if possible, but certainly before the next harvest rolls around. This isn’t so much a question of safety — frozen food will rarely go “bad†— but of quality.
Finally, The Minimalist leaves us with this tip to help avoid intra-freezer food waste:
One more thing, easy to overlook and impossible to overrate: Label. It is incredible how much things grow to resemble another in the freezer.
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4 responses to “The Minimalist on Maximizing Food Life”
Another tip: In addition to labeling, we also keep a chalkboard list on the wall of our freezer’s contents.
Beck, I really should do that. I’ve nearly mastered the art of fridge organization over the last year(I’ve been working to eliminate food waste in my home), but my freezer has continued to be a bit of an Achilles heel for me.
Bittman misses a few tricks with regards to the freezer.
– If you have too much citrus, zest it, *then* squeeze it, then put the rind on a plate with some water and nuke it for a couple of minutes, then grind it in the garbage disposal (if you have one). You get four things from one lemon: zest, juice, better smelling microwave, better smelling disposal.
– Bananas last a lot longer than a couple weeks in the freezer. I’ve been dumping unpeeled bananas in the freezer for years. Six month old ones makes bread & smoothies that are just as good as 6 day old ones.
– If you have fruit that’s about to go bad (“I really, really thought I was going to eat all that”), freeze it for smoothies or ice cream. I know from experience that it doesn’t much matter how old it is or if it’s freezer burnt, so I mix up all types of fruit in a ziplok. When I want a smoothie, I dump the contents of the bag into my blender, wait for it to defrost, and hit go. Yum!
[…] The Freezer: Your Friend in the Fight Against Food Waste. Mark Bittman’s Minimalist blog sings the praises of the freezer, and gives tips for maximizing its usefulness. Via: Wasted Food Blog […]