I biked past a church pumpkin patch yesterday and was surprised to see a relatively stocked supply, despite the day-after timing. That got me thinking about our pumpkins’ fates.
Pumpkins are the most wasted food in homes (by weight), as detailed in a soon-to-be published study that shall remain nameless. Yet, I can’t get too worked up about pumpkin waste when they’ve served their purpose–a cultural, not a culinary one.
Besides, there are so many more galling kinds of food waste. At the same time…that doesn’t mean we have to let our pumpkins go for naught. 
We can cook with their innards.
This tends to work best with the sugar pie variety of pumpkin, but can happen with most any kind. The ideas are endless, from muffins to cookies to soup to burgers fries.
And then there are the glorious seeds. There’s a container of them in my fridge awaiting roasting. (Tomorrow, I’ve promised myself).
If it’s too late to eat your pumpkin (and if you live in a colder climate, even carved ones could still be edible), try to keep it out of the landfill. In other words, compost it!
Seattle and San Francisco residents have it easy. They can slip their pumpkins in their mandatory curbside food waste bin. The rest of us must turn to backyard bins. If that’s not on, maybe we can “return” pumpkins to the woods or bring them to that farm with a pumpkin cannon.
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