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Weekend reads: How much edible turkey gets wasted!?!
Food news and items of interest from around the Web for your weekend reading.
Fri, Dec 30 2011 at 2:21 PM
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We have been so blessed to have many friends and family share meals with us over the past few weeks, but it’s meant a lot of leftovers have been in my refrigerator. I’ve done my best to make sure that we wasted as little as possible, but try as I might, some things end up thrown away.
I was reading Judith Jones’ “The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food” last week (I highly recommend it by the way), and she talked about how she and her husband would create lunches based on the odds and ends they would have in their refrigerator because they couldn’t bare to waste food. I’ve been working on that since both my husband and I work from home. I’ve found that if I keep a good supply of Naan in the freezer, I can usually find ways to make creative flat bread pizzas out of just about anything.
It also helps to keep reminding myself about the statistics of food waste. When I find that I’ve gotten a little lax with food waste, doing that gives me an incentive to get back on track.
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Here’s the most shocking statistic I’ve read recently. Ninety-seven million pounds of edible turkey meat gets thrown away at Christmastime! That’s according to Blue Channel 24. They have some other staggering statistics as well as some tips to waste less food.
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Eat.Drink.Better has a two-part post with 11 ways to reduce everyday food waste. Using these methods can help you save 35 percent on your food bill.
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The Natural Resources Defense Council has created a Food Facts infographic that puts food waste into picture perfect perspective. Which foods do we waste the most of? Turns out its meat and fish – two of the most expensive foods to create and to buy.
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It’s not just personal food waste that’s a problem. The food wasted in grocery stores before consumers even buy it is staggering. The New York Times reports that the Grocery Manufacturers Association is aiming to “both to reduce the amount of food sent to landfills and to increase donations to food banks for the poor.”
Have a safe and happy New Year!
Image: Matt Callow
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One thing we don't do is cook for the week. We have neighbors that use Sunday as a day to create a pasta type dish, and it acts as a snack type meal. Ready and raring to go at a moments notice, just heat and serve. I wonder if WE should be doing something like that!
I have done that in the past. I found it convenient--but fell out of doing it. It works better in the summer when I can make up a few salads for everyone to eat during the week. Maybe I will experiment with some pasta dishes. Do you have the recipe where we can have a starting point?
No I don't have the recipe.
That's too bad. I will hunt around and experiment to see what I can come up with here. Let me know if you give it a try too.
Is it possible that processing our own food could make better use out of all the parts of a meat?
Not really sure that is makes sense at a home level, but watching documentaries like Food Inc. really does highlight the food industries ability to make use of ALL the parts.
Nearly 40% of food is wasted? Eep. Time to look at what I can do to reduce food waste. How will you reduce food waste in 2012?