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| Search and Ye Shall Find... and Eat! |
My ever practical grandmother was a spoken word poet before we called them that. She had a large and impressive collection of poems that she would perform in church services and programs, and for her family. One of her favorite prose (and mine) was a very long poem called Use What You Got. The poem, in essence, cautions us to stop waiting to be rescued, delivered or even to get started. It said that we already have what we need. We must use what we've got!
On the issue of food waste at home, I am reminded of this poem.One of the biggest expenditures in our family budgets is food. As we recover from the recession, one of the best ways of controlling spending is keeping food costs down. And one of the best ways of keeping food costs down is utilizing food that you already have. This may seem like it’s stating the obvious. But many of us do not make the best use of food we’ve already purchased. We let leftovers go bad and we have stocked up items in the cupboard that we never use. According to a 2004 report on Discovery News :
A typical American family tosses away 14 percent of their groceries, helping to account for the $75 billion of food wasted annually in the United States.”The eight –year study that disclosed these disturbing statistics suggest that families could considerably improve their finances if we learned to more wisely buy, store and use food.
I know this is true in my household. My efforts to prepare more wholesome foods is often thwarted because I do not utilize my purchases before they go bad. This is not helped by my family’s aversion to leftovers. In the Larry O’Hanion’s pre-recession article, Food Waste Epidemic in America, University of Arizona anthropologist Timothy Jones says: "If we wanted to stimulate the economy, all we'd have to do is cut food losses."
Jonathan Bloom also handles this subject in his book, American Wasteland. In it, Bloom estimates that we waste 50% of our food. FIFTY PERCENT! Bloom explores all the different places –from seed to plate- where food is wasted. It’s truly an eye opening read. Bloom’s focus is on waste in the food and restaurant industries, but I agree with TheTastyCheapskate, who in her review of Bloom’s book, says
… part of the problem with waste in America is a problem in the attitude of average Americans in their average kitchens. We have ceased to reverence our food (and apparently, some of our money as well).So how do we begin to change the way we think about and address our food treatment at home?
Kelly Rossiter at PlanetGreen.com, shares in her post, Clean Out Your Refrigerator and Make Dinner, how to make dinner with what you find already in your frig. As practical and obvious as this sounds, many of us don’t think about doing this before going out to buy something else. Rossiter also talks about how to use leftovers in this article—Get Recession Ready—Use Your Leftovers--, where she shares how to reframe your thinking about leftovers. Often, once your meal leftovers are placed in an opaque container, and put into the frig, they become invisible and forgotten.
Fortunately there are lots of places online that share ways to better utilize your food. Here are five:
1. Love Food Hate Waste—Leftover Recipes-LOVE THIS SITE!
2. 50 Ways to Never Waste Food Again
3. 5 Ways to reduce Food Waste
4. Doggie Bag Dining: Using Up Leftovers
5. Left Over Chef
Now, go forth and start your own leftover REVOLUTION!
