Whenever my mom comes to visit, which she is this week, she scours my crisper drawer for things that she can make into stocks, stews, broths and curries. She abhors food waste because she was raised post WW2 to be really frugal. With our economy in the shape its now in and with rising food prices, it makes sense for all of us to get a grip on not wasting our precious food. It’s mind-boggling to see that studies estimate that 40% of food that is produced in America is thrown away as waste and winds up in the landfill. Most of this wastage occurs in grocery stores where the sell-by dates have to be strictly adhered to, regardless of the fact that perfectly good food goes to waste – oftentimes they can’t even legally deliver this food to pantries or food banks. Food waste from restaurants also adds to this statistic.
However, we are just as guilty and have less excuse – more studies estimate that regular consumers throw away up to a third of their food. So how to we avoid throwing perfectly good food away or preserving our food to last longer? The main food that’s obviously thrown away is perishable food: fruits, veggies, meat, fish and dairy.
It’s obvious but true – freezing things like bread, meats, buns, pastries, and even fruits and veggies is a great way to avoid wastage. If I 
have a bunch of ripe bananas that I’m not going to use, I peel and slice them and pop them in freezer bags to use in smoothies. I often split up a loaf of bread and put half in the freezer, just in case no one eats it.
Another rather obvious tip that’s taken me a while to really put into practice is to always put ripe fruit, including avocados in the fridge. If you don’t like cold fruit, you can take it out an hour before eating it.
Remember that many foods will stay good for weeks after their sell-by-date. You just need to make sure that your fridge is set at forty degrees F or below.
Milk – can last 2 weeks beyond it’s SBD
Eggs- can last up to 3 weeks beyond their SBD
Hard Cheese – if covered properly in foil and then a freezer bag can last up to 3 months past its SBD
Yogurt – can last 10 days past its SB
Raw meets can last up to year in your freezer and ground meats up to 6 months – but make sure your freezer is zero degrees!
Most packaged pantry foods such as pasta, sugar and flour last for about one year. I like to keep my flour in the freezer as it keeps it fresher.
What about the food scraps that we scrape into our trash cans? I’m a huge advocate of composting and after a few years of doing it, I’ve finally got a brilliant system down, helped largely by two brilliantly innovative designs.
The first is the Fresh Air Counter Collector by Full Circle. I love every product that this company makes, however the Fresh Air is genius and my ceramic compost crock is now out of commission. Everything about this user-friendly design works. You can either keep it on your counter or as I do, beside my regular trash can under my sink. Due to the ventilation holes that make the air circulate around it – it doesn’t smell at all! You stick an little compostable bag (it comes with 5) in it, clip it down and fill it up with all your fruit/veggie scraps, egg shells, tea bags, bread, paper towels etc. When full, simply remove the bag and either take to your local community garden, which may well have a composting program, or stick it in your compost bin. I didn’t love emptying my old crock and the stuff at the bottom would have gotten really nasty by the end of the week – but with my Fresh Air – it’s a breeze.
Having tried almost every compost bin on the market, I love my eComposter composting bin best for 2 major reasons:
1. Rodents can’t get in it, so they don’t come near my yard anymore.
2. I started off throwing a few worms in and now it’s turned into a worm factory beyond anything I could have imagined – way better than any worm bin you can buy. They just keep multiplying I guess as they can’t get out! So I toss in my scraps every few days and because of the worms it’s a bottomless pit with no bad odor – so there landfill – you’re not getting any Uliano scraps!
So whether it’s emptying your crisper drawer of loose carrots and potatoes and making a soup with the stock you make from a chicken carcass, or eating beyond the sell-by-dates, or even composting – it’s SOOOO satisfying not to waste. As my mom always used to say – “Waste Not, Want Not” – very true.
I live in Michigan and the winters are very cold. Is there a good odor free composting system we can keep indoors and still add the worms?