Food Disasters & Food Waste

Tonight I made a new soup recipe. I’ve not been feeling well the past couple of days, a sore throat, and so something comforting was in order. Soup seemed to fit the bill, and I found a very quick and easy recipe for a Mediterranean Bean Soup. So, I set about soaking the beans and starting the soup with enough time for them to be tender enough to eat when Kiddo arrived home from gymnastics. Sadly, I overestimated the amount of salt I needed to compensate for using dried beans instead of canned and the soup ended up being a bit too salty. I’m going to see if I can’t finish off the last serving of it for lunch tomorrow; fortunately it did not make a large batch.

Between my food disaster tonight – and believe me, it’s not the first – and the amount of cereal I’ve had to throw away lately because Kiddo poured out too much, or generally got distracted and didn’t eat much before wandering off to do some important train track building or Hot Wheels racing, I’ve been thinking a lot about food waste.

I find it disheartening to think about how much food gets thrown out in this country, hell, in this household. Certainly, we do our best to have as little food waste as possible – after all, our pockets aren’t that deep, we feel a pinch when grocery prices skyrocket – but we still are in a class and in a country where food waste is a reality of life.

This year I have redoubled my efforts to cut down on our food waste by planning more meals with our leftovers, either by reheating them or by reinventing them within another recipe. I try to buy produce in small amounts so we don’t have any go bad; though sometimes the only way I can buy some produce items is in larger amounts than I’m going to use. And I nag my husband about eating through leftovers with me. It’s easy enough for me to make sure Kiddo and I are eating on the leftovers, a little more challenging to get a grown man to get with the program. (Fortunately, he prefers taking leftovers for his lunch – except maybe tonight’s soup.)

I challenge you to consider the ways your household creates food waste and decide one thing you can do to reduce or re-purpose (compost, anyone?) that food waste.