Enough is Enough
Feb. 6th, 2020 09:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eat_it_all_upAll right, that’s it. I’ve had it with food waste. The poorly-thought-out purchases that end up forgotten in shadowy corners of the pantry or freezer, the leftovers that end up eeewwww in the fridge, and the desperation dinner drive-through visits that end up with a mountain of packaging trash, uneaten scraps, and that *ugh* feeling in my belly. It’s a sin to waste food, echoes the voice in my head from my childhood. But all too often, there goes good food, into the trash, becoming a disposal problem instead of a resource for sustenance. And frankly, though these days I’m not so focused on the concept of sin, I’m ready to make new habits and cut this waste.
I want to buy good food in appropriate quantities, cook at home far more often than we eat out, use ingredients I have on hand instead of letting them languish, and polish off the leftovers before they end up as compost (or garbage!), squandering those nutrients and energy and bloating the landfill. I want to have enough food stored up at home to be prepared for any of life's little or big emergencies, but not too much, so it doesn't get old before I get to it. I want to spend wisely, on quality, not quantity. I want my family to eat healthily, which is so very hard to do from drive-through feed bags or processed-food boxes and pouches. I want to eat deliciously, sharing food with my family and friends in the pleasure of a clear conscience. In short, I need to polish up and focus on those incredibly unfashionable skills of home economics.
Lord knows, I’ve tried: the list-making, the pantry clearing, the meal planning. For years, I’ve been repeatedly trying to do better, getting distracted by life, and falling back into disappointing old ways. (Oh, the poor slimy celery! Cue the sad music.) But I’ve got so many reasons to keep trying. I realize that food is just one strand in our complex, busy lives, but it’s a strand that connects to many others, and it’s one whose end is dangling right in front of me. I’m the main shopper, cook, lunch packer, gardener, and nutritional advocate at my house. Time to tie on the apron and claim some of that power!
And now, I hope to have a new weapon in the fight to keep my eyes on the prize: you, dear reader. I love to write, and thinking about sharing my "messes and successes" with you will help me stay focused. And aren't you over it too? Aren’t you ready to stop being a member of the tribe that throws away 1/3 of its food? Or maybe you already have this figured out, and you can share your habits, tricks, suggestions and ideas with me. Maybe, starting with ourselves, we can shift the culture just a little bit, back towards a deeper respect for the gift that is our food. It’s my hope that this will bring us closer together, and into better alignment with all the forces that sustain us. I think we’ll find that a bit of gratitude for what we have can be a delicious thing!
I want to buy good food in appropriate quantities, cook at home far more often than we eat out, use ingredients I have on hand instead of letting them languish, and polish off the leftovers before they end up as compost (or garbage!), squandering those nutrients and energy and bloating the landfill. I want to have enough food stored up at home to be prepared for any of life's little or big emergencies, but not too much, so it doesn't get old before I get to it. I want to spend wisely, on quality, not quantity. I want my family to eat healthily, which is so very hard to do from drive-through feed bags or processed-food boxes and pouches. I want to eat deliciously, sharing food with my family and friends in the pleasure of a clear conscience. In short, I need to polish up and focus on those incredibly unfashionable skills of home economics.
Lord knows, I’ve tried: the list-making, the pantry clearing, the meal planning. For years, I’ve been repeatedly trying to do better, getting distracted by life, and falling back into disappointing old ways. (Oh, the poor slimy celery! Cue the sad music.) But I’ve got so many reasons to keep trying. I realize that food is just one strand in our complex, busy lives, but it’s a strand that connects to many others, and it’s one whose end is dangling right in front of me. I’m the main shopper, cook, lunch packer, gardener, and nutritional advocate at my house. Time to tie on the apron and claim some of that power!
And now, I hope to have a new weapon in the fight to keep my eyes on the prize: you, dear reader. I love to write, and thinking about sharing my "messes and successes" with you will help me stay focused. And aren't you over it too? Aren’t you ready to stop being a member of the tribe that throws away 1/3 of its food? Or maybe you already have this figured out, and you can share your habits, tricks, suggestions and ideas with me. Maybe, starting with ourselves, we can shift the culture just a little bit, back towards a deeper respect for the gift that is our food. It’s my hope that this will bring us closer together, and into better alignment with all the forces that sustain us. I think we’ll find that a bit of gratitude for what we have can be a delicious thing!
food waste
Date: 2020-02-07 04:57 pm (UTC)I agree that leftover waste needs to be alleviated and it just gets worse as the kids get older and eat ever more. It's hard to gauge how much you'll need and you want them full at dinner so there isn't anyone rummaging around in the fridge late at night.
It is a shame things get shoved to the back or forgotten but, I think everyone does that, unfortunately. Maybe if refrigerators were only a foot deep instead of what they are...
If you have a few friends who are also looking for leftover relief, consider making your dinner and packing half of it or the leftovers up and trading them with your friends...or double wrapping them for storage in the freezer for those I don't feel like cooking nights. I'm still trying to figure the leftover thing out and it seems like an issue not to be solved this century.
Re: food waste
Date: 2020-02-07 08:16 pm (UTC)For sure, the issue keeps coming back, like a bad smell from the back of the fridge! ;) It's a lucky problem to have, of course, and one more symptom of the too-muchness of our culture in general, but I'm hoping that I'll get better by regularly shining a light in those dark corners.
I love having frozen entrees in the fridge for busy nights, and I'm getting more realistic about what my DH and I will eat up during the week immediately following a meal and what I really should freeze and let us have a breather from. Not 100%, of course, but better. It's just REMEMBERING to do it right away- I've got to freeze the remainder right when I'm cleaning up from dinner. Figuring I can stick it in the fridge "for now" until I have time to wrap and label it properly seems to be a recipe for disaster (or at least a smelly fridge and sad scraping into the trash can).
Thanks for your ideas and encouragement. Let's keep putting our heads together on this!
--Heather