With the holidays fast approaching, I wanted to pass on a few quick tips to help you minimize holiday food waste: 1. Don’t cook too much food. Thanksgiving celebrates abundance. As far as I know, none of the winter holidays do. Get a good guest count and try not to go overboard. After all, we can [...]
Happy (de facto) National Leftover Day! Join the crowd and enjoy the world’s best sandwich–the turkey-stuffing-cranberry goodness. Gravy and mayo are optional, but at least one is recommended. — — Don’t throw out that carcass! First, you can make a great soup with it. Then, if you’re in Rhode Island, you can compost it via [...]
If you could use a little pick-me-up this morning or some inspiration for hitting the Dumpsters, you could do worse than the Black Lips’ Dumpster Dive. Perhaps fittingly, it’s the last track on their MySpace site and their album… I ain’t seen some good trash since I…since I don’t know when… While I can’t make out [...]
Whenever I’m asked why we waste so much food, ‘abundance’ is one of the first words I utter. We grow far more food than we need, averaging 3900 calories per person per day.* One result of our abundance is that we’re inundated with food. Supermarkets have a seemingly bottomless supply of food (When was the [...]
I recently came across an amazing collection of vintage Navy posters dealing with–you guessed it–food waste. Avoiding waste, to be more specific. I’d only previously seen one of these posters, so you can imagine my excitement–especially as I’m a bit of a propaganda geek. The Navy’s Bureau of Supplies and Accounts produced this set of [...]
As we ease into 2011, it’s a decent time to revisit the ‘clean your plate’ ethic, as this Kansas City Star columnist does. In this obesity-heavy era, it’s easy to scoff at the idea that we should eat all that’s on our plates. There are the eating disorder worries. And with today’s portion sizes so [...]
OK, maybe don’t eat it, but…you can use your Christmas tree to flavor your food. That’s the message from Denmark, espoused in this NYT op-ed. I don’t have much experience with Christmas trees, but it sounds like a neat idea. After all, spruce and fir needles seem very rosemary-ish. Why not deploy them as an [...]
I hinted at this on Monday, but I wanted to throw down an expanded call to action for Thanksgiving and after: Be Thankful, Not Wasteful Thanksgiving celebrates abundance. And we should absolutely enjoy the celebration. At the same time, I don’t think we honor anyone or anything by wasting food. I’m calling on you to [...]
It’s that time of year again–when I start thinking about the glorious Thanksgiving…leftovers! If you’re like me, you might be craving that day-after sandwich as much as the day-of dinner. Yet, with all of our abundance, though, comes the threat of waste. That’s why I’m hoping you guys will submit some advice here and on [...]
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 [...]
