Every Friday I participate in The Frugal Girl's Food Waste Friday movement, where we take pictures of our food that has gone bad, or uneaten throughout the week and post them for the world to see in hopes of embarrassing ourselves into being less wasteful. It works pretty well!
This week had mixed results:
The beginning of the week, we ate at fast food places a couple times while we were out running around town and happened to get hungry.
Let me tell you, eating out creates a lot of waste! Not just food waste, but garbage as well. I am always appalled at the amount of trash we create when our family of 4 orders a meal from a fast food joint. The burger wrappers, the boxes from french fries, the Styrofoam cups that can't be recycled, the lids and straws, the bag it all came in...it makes me feel so terrible because all of that stuff is too greasy to go into the recycling bin.
We hardly ever eat out- its too expensive and unhealthy, but like I said, this week we bent the rules a little and ended up with a pile of uneaten food. I forgot to take a picture, but we had two uneaten cheeseburgers from one meal, and then an uneaten chicken finger from another meal. We vowed to not eat out again for a while.
Hopefully that vow lasts!
The rest of the week we did fairly well!
I am happy to report that the only things that did end up going to waste were able to go into the compost bin, so they aren't really going to waste since they'll be fertilizing our soil later in the year.
This is what I chucked into the compost this morning:
Steel cut oats (again! I guess we're making too much every morning), Garlic-raisin couscous and Swiss chard with chickpeas and shallots. I had made the couscous and Swiss chard for dinner earlier in the week; it was one of those new recipes that didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, if you know what I mean.
It was edible ( the couscous was delicious!) but not necessarily something I wanted to re-heat and re-eat. Swiss Chard is not my favorite green, it turns out.
I probably won't make it again.
Thankfully the whole meal was of veggies and grains, so into the compost bin it went!
Update on the kid food waste: I practiced giving them smaller portions this week and made them sit until they ate their food and guess what?? They ate all of their food! Nearly every meal. I almost don't believe it, especially because Ethan has always been a huge food waster. I guess he just needed a little more guidance and structure, since now he is emptying his plate cheerfully and asking to get down from the table, then putting his plate on the counter near the sink. I love it when new rules and routines are so easily embraced! :)
Now, if I can just get Eliana potty-trained...
How did you do this week with your food waste?
Linking to The Frugal Girl
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