How much work is it to reduce food waste?
Jan 10 – Truth is, I don’t know yet. My husband and I decided to work on reducing our food waste this year. We don’t know where we’re starting so we decided to empty out the fridge and pantry for items that were expired. That alone took us to 7 kg of food. Holy hannah. Then I thought about ways to use food more than once, particularly scraps. Our vegetable scraps are being frozen to make broth then will go in the composter. Apple cores, skins and seeds are being frozen to make apple jelly. Orange peels are being saved to make potpourri in the spring.
——————————————————————————————————————-
Jan 31 – Well, the month is over and our total for January food waste is…
11.029 kilograms.
24.314 pounds
That’s equivalent to a dachshund! Not nearly as cute though!
Honestly, I’m a bit surprised that the number is so high. I’m glad that we’re paying attention to this type of waste and are actively trying to change our contribution level. One lovely soul recommended that we attempt to figure out root cause – track spoilage, leftover waste and the contributor type (dairy, fruits, vegetables, etc). The split between spoilage and leftover waste was about 50/50. Our largest contributor was vegetables.
In February, we are aiming to have 15% less waste than this baseline. That would mean approximately 10 kg or 22 lbs. Hopefully we can crush that goal and share with you all how we did it!
Of course, we welcome ideas too! Any ideas on how we can reduce food waste in February?
