True to her name, The Frugal Girl is attempting to not waste any food in her home. She’s illustrating her progress by posting photos of her weekly food waste on her blog.
I admire Frugal Girl’s goal and her being brave enough to broadcast her waste online. In her most recent recap, she talks of wanting to have a no-waste week. While zero food waste is a noble goal, it’s nearly impossible to achieve.
As I’ve mentioned before, I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to avoid waste and still have to compost a decent amount of food (half-used bunches of cilantro come to mind). Of course, while eliminating food waste is really difficult, it’s not hard to send zero waste to the landfill by composting.
My point is this: I’d hate for someone to not try to reduce their food waste because they think they’ll never reach that mythical “zero waste” level. Any improvement is a positive.
As Voltaire said, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
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Side note: I came across the above quotation in this fascinating, long(!) article on private deportations of illegal immigrants by hospitals. Funny part was that the Florida circuit judge who voiced Voltaire’s logic mangled and misattributed it:
“As Aquinas once stated, ‘The good is not the enemy of the perfect,’ ”
12 Comments
Hi – great post and I love that you mention about not letting perfection get in the way of ‘good enough’.
I love Frugal Girl’s blog too and admire her challenge. She is doing so well and deserves a lot of support.
Regarding herbs that are not used up. Something I do with them is freeze them just before they hit their worst (or to take advantage of a glut in the garden or a bargain at the market!).
Either in ice cube trays with a little water or, if there is a lot, I’ll make a batch of herb butter.
Just chop the herbs and mix into softened butter and then freeze it.
Potatoes are great with a bit of mint butter on them. (especially in the depths of winter when you are longing for summer again) Curries can have a some butter with cilantro frozen in it added at the end, just before serving. Other herb butters or ice cubes can be added to soups, casseroles and stocks………
Well, I have lots of grace for people who throw away half-used bunches of cilantro! lol And yes, it’s good to remember that less waste is always progress. I don’t have pictures of the mountains of food I used to throw away, but there would be a huge contrast between that and the pictures I’m taking now.
I agree with Mrs Green. Its not about trying to be perfect – its about making better choices more often than not…and not feeling guilty if you can’t do “whats best”
Even my friends who use cloth diapers, will bring a disposable one if they are out and about, because carrying a poop filled diaper all day is well, you know…
Mrs. Green,
I’ve been meaning to make those herb cubes (with or without butter) ever since I saw them for sale at Trader Joe’s. What holds me back is that I always think I’ll use some more of the fresh herbs the next day. I can never quite cut my losses.
What’s really helped is having some homegrown herbs around. I just take what I need for that meal. But you’re right that it’d be nice to have a taste of garden herbs in the winter. Does basil freeze well? If not, I’m gonna make a big batch of pesto.
I’ve no clue as to how the persons who lurk and kibitz here could have zero food waste but there was a time when some of us did in fact have zero food waste.
Feeding the last scraps to a mix of chickens and pigs in a farm yard will result in every crumb, literally every crumb being consumed by animals that can then be slaughtered and eaten. The waste from the slaughter got a bit more complicated but we managed that too – when I was a kid there was a joke that we used every part of the pig except the squeal.
Oh, and a goat is magnificently efficient at devouring unharvested food that might be potential waste.
Jonathan, basil freezes well in butter, but pesto is better 😉
Enjoy!
Jonathan – my mother in law freezes pesto – basil, pine nuts mix – and it is awesome.
I was just feeling very pleased with myself last night as I used a cube of frozen cilantro while cooking dinner. Chop them up and freeze them in water immediately — you’re not going to use it tomorrow, and even if you do, all you have to do is pull out a cube. The key for me was using the teeny chopper that came with my stick blender; I could never quite work up the energy to pull out my Cuisinart for a tiny bit of herbs. I use the stems and all; when you chopping that finely there’s no reason to stick with just leaves.
I’ve realized that the key to avoiding waste is to commit to doing a lot of food prep. I’m not likely to do it when cooking dinner or afterwards, with all the dishes, so I just said aside time during the day to deal with crockpot full of stock or that bunch of wilting herbs or the leftovers that will be fine as long as they get frozen today. And pretty much anything can be frozen. All these foodwriters who tell you that certain items don’t freeze well drive me nuts. Sure, most lettuce freezes badly (not romaine, though!), but you can always freeze it and use it in soup or stock. I’m told raw potatoes don’t freeze well; they’re fine boiled. Anything you plan to cook later will be fine because the texture is going to change when it gets cooked any way. I wish our cookbooks and magazines would stop encouraging people to toss food and instead teach people how to use what what we’ve got.
Janes’_kid-yeah, I’m not very near zero waste if you count things like chicken bones or beef fat(or other non-compostable stuff). For my purposes, I’m counting edible stuff when I pile up my food waste each week…stuff that could have been eaten but wasn’t for whatever reason.
So, I’ve often wondered why the stores aren’t more willing to sell smaller bunches of cilantro? Granted, it’s really cheap even if large bunches, but often what we waste is due to being forced to purchase more than we know we need.
Just get a worm bin and composter. Hardly ever waste a thing anymore.
Oh, and dogs, of course….