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Food for Thought Friday: is there hidden cash in your trash can?
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(^current state of my kitchen shelf. tomatillos for salsa! gooseberries from my new CSA! bananas need eaten!)
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Hello!
As you know - it’s SUMMER (where I am, at least!), which means the freshest and tastiest produce is POPPIN wherever you’re shoppin’ (hopefully the farmers market)! It’s always a struggle for me not to buy ALL THE FOOD - but especially this time of year. I want ALL the stone fruits! Berries! Watermelons! Tomatoes! Peppers! Cukes!
The summer abundance also means it’s a great time to discuss... food waste!
If you’ve been reading for a while, you’ll know that I HATE FOOD WASTE with a passion! There are numerous ethical and environmental reasons not to waste food, but even before caring about those, I hope you'll agree with my number one reason: when you waste food, you are wasting money! You wouldn’t put your hard-earned cash in the trash can, right?! In my opinion, food waste should be just as unacceptable.
The good news is: this problem is TOTALLY preventable! At least on the individual scale, there's a LOT we can do about it! The big picture is a different story AND (I think) an important motivator - in case you didn't know, the rate of food waste in the US is close to 40% 🤯 , while ~11% of Americans remain food insecure, meaning they still struggle to put food on the table. It's absurd. And yet - my favorite remedy for a frustrating big picture is individual ACTION STEPS. Luckily on this topic, I'm chock-full of 'em!
One of my KEY principles of Intuitive Cooking is this: the Active Prevention of Food Waste.
An "active prevention of food waste" requires… you guessed it - ACTION! It is a PRACTICE. We don’t just buy groceries and “hope for the best” not to waste them. Instead, we intuitive cooks (and aspiring ones!) have habits in place that stop food waste before it happens. You likely already do some of these without thinking much about it - either way, I hope today’s email will inspire you to start and/or expand your practice!
My Active Prevention of Food Waste currently includes 7 key practices (and counting). It's a big topic! I’ve included the full outline/overview at the bottom of this email, and today I am going to dig in to practice #3 in detail with examples + tips. (I've written previously on practices #1 - Food Storage, and #2 - Maximizing Use of the Whole Veg. Links in the outline below for further reading on those).
Some context to keep in mind on this topic: Our bigger vision of food storage + purchasing can be organized into three domains: the fridge, the freezer, and the pantry. Though food waste happens most often with “fresh” food stored in the fridge, waste can also happen with pantry and freezer food. Food (perishable or not) is ALWAYS best when FRESH, so it’s important to rotate through and replace pantry and freezer food as well as fresh “fridge” food. Side story: At a dinner party once, I made everyone smell some rancid flour. Many of them reacted with, "Oh - I thought that's just what flour smelled like!" NOPE! Pantry food goes bad too!
NOW LET’S GET INTO TODAY'S LESSON!
Practice #3 in the (GPJ) Active Prevention of Food Waste is:
NOTICING what gets wasted/lingers around in your fridge and then taking a corresponding action to prevent it. Some actions might include:
- buying less of whatever frequently gets wasted
- adopting a new habit to stop the waste, which might include things like:
- immediately freezing extra ____, or
- incorporating it into a "use it up meal" (more on these in a future email) or
- proactively making something with the generally wasted item
Step one of making ANY change to behavior in life is first NOTICING, ie, becoming aware of the problem. You probably already know right now what foods are wasted most often in your household. Think about those for a moment. Now that you're aware, you can take an action to fix it!
The simplest option is to BUY LESS! I know - it's seems so obvious right?! But seriously - even when we actually have abundance, it is all too easy to operate from a scarcity mindset - especially around something as essential as food. If you are constantly throwing food away, then you are simply buying too much. That said - managing food quantities well is REALLY HARD. It takes consistent observation and practice to get good at it. Noticing what gets wasted is the best way to improve.
Aside from buying less, once you notice what's wasted, you can then develop a new habit or thing to cook to stop the waste. A few months ago, I asked my Instagram followers to share the lingering items in their fridges. Here are the most common answers and some ideas on stopping the waste of these foods:
herbs and greens were the #1 thing people said goes to waste. Solution #1 - store herbs to extend life if not already doing so (see here). Solution #2 (and don't feel bad, herbs going bad is very common and I also accidentally let it happen sometimes, but much less so because...) Enter another one of my passions: GREEN SAUCE - it's the simplest and most delicious way to use up herbs! I actually have a new habit of making green sauce with half the herbs as soon as I bring them home - rather than later right before they go bad! When I prep my herbs to store in a jar of water with a compostable bag on top - I now take about half the bunch (especially any slightly wilty ones) and make green sauce right then and there since it's so fast and I always want it in my fridge!
lemons, wilted greens, spinach - all of these can also be added to green sauce!
tomato paste and/or extra canned tomatoes - My best tip for these is to immediately freeze any extra tomato paste or canned tomatoes. Put extra in a small jar, tupperware, or plastic bag (paste only). Label and store for later - these will thaw fairly quickly when needed. The trick is remembering that you have them in the freezer the next time you need them! To solve that, see "freezer inventory" in the outline below and I'll go into more detail on that practice in the future.
ginger - I store mine in the freezer often to prevent waste, or if I buy fresh, I store it in the fridge for a few weeks, and move it to the freezer at any point if I am at risk of not using it up
red onion - make pickled onions! (google it, so easy - tons of ways to do it)
1/2 used jars of jam - this is a fun one! I would put jam on top of goat cheese/any creamy cheese for a quick appetizer. Or I would mix with yogurt/coconut milk as a sweetener/flavoring for chia pudding (recipe you could adapt here).
green olives - also goes on the cheese plate! or I would just snack on these while I cook. But could also go in a marinated salad or in pasta
celery, cabbage, kohlrabi, radishes, asparagus, carrots, bok choy, etc - many veg were listed! The solution for these odds and ends is practice #5: a "use it up" cooking practice. In short that means regularly making "intuitive" meals that purposefully use things up - namely a random mix of veggies! (Marinated salads are great for this. More on my favorite "use it up" formats coming soon.)
And that concludes our lesson for today! Continue reading for the full outline of Preventative Food Waste Practices, which I will continue to elaborate on in future emails.
Happy weekend and happy waste-reduction!
Love,
Jess
GPJ Active Prevention of Food Waste Practices:
- Food storage practices that extend the life of your food!
- If you're new to my list, be sure to check out my veggie storage strategies. (Longer article here.) Multiple people say these strategies are "life changing"!!!
- Freezer: in general - minimize air contact to prevent freezer burn
- Pantry: tight seals; note dates of flours (esp. alternative ones) and store those in fridge or freezer as needed to prolong life.
- Maximize use of the WHOLE VEG and/or scraps! See:
- Eat your stalks!
- Scrappy tea (a very profesh video you may not have seen!)
- Scrap broth (IG story) - freeze veggie and chicken scraps, make broth - future email coming soon
- NOTICE what gets wasted and then take corresponding future action, which could include:
- buying less of whatever gets wasted
- adopting a new habit to stop the waste
- Build a reliable “pantry” and “freezer” meal repertoire so that when you run out of food, you know you can always make/eat this
- ACTIVE “use it up” cooking practice
- habitual “use it up” meals (ex: my daily breakfast saute bowl)
- intentional “use it up” meals / inspiration seeking (once/week: “what needs to get eaten?! then make a meal from that”)
- Intentional pantry/freezer search for inspiration - when bored, go to pantry/freezer for inspo; check them in between grocery shops, choose something to use and let that be part of your meal inspiration for the week *before* buying new food
- Nudging - mainly fridge but also pantry/freezer - IG video here
- Easy-to-see/access and/or visually-inspiring pantry setup
- Inventory Management + Labeling/Dating System
- Keep grocery lists on app and as soon as you are running low on a key pantry item, add to list and replenish soon
- Keep a freezer inventory (written list on outside of freezer for all things in/out)
- Use painters tape to label and date foods for foods that tend to sit for a while, write on containers the dates of when frozen/opened/purchased, etc
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PS. In case you missed it, I was interviewed on a friend's podcast recently - Listen here! It’s an hour long, so if you’re in a rush - skip to 35:06 (my favorite part) where I do a live "intuitive cooking lesson" in which I advise the hosts on how to switch up their go-to meals with a few simple changes. If you listen in full, you’ll hear: my thoughts on the Alison Roman drama, my awkward intro where the first thing I say about myself is my age (LOL, NERVOUS), and why I never cook boneless skinless chicken breasts.
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If you like this email, I would LOVE IT if you forward along to your favorite food-loving friends, or better yet, forward and then cook something together! Wannabe subscribers can sign up here. Thanks for reading!
In case you missed out, here are a few past issues to check out:
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Hi, I'm Jess! I help health-conscious, busy people transform their cooking from "chore" to "whippin it up!" through intuitive cooking, which I teach through online classes, free content, coaching and more. This is my newsletter, Food for Thought Fridays, where I share highly actionable tips and inspiration to help you cook more intuitively (which makes cooking feel easier and SO much more fun!). Once a month, I share a recipe that's really worth making, and I only share those with my email subscribers.
I currently work + live on land that is the unceded territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone. And I can't wait to eat at Cafe Ohlone when they reopen someday! Check out this article about them.
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