Kristen Wiltshire | November 8, 2024
Any food that is discarded is food waste. This can include spoiled items, food scraps, or uneaten food.
According to the USDA, 30-40% of all food produced in the U.S. is lost (wasted and thrown away) at the retail and consumer level. Food waste ends up in landfills which tend to be in areas where people live and children play. The vast amounts of waste require trucks and fuels to transport contributing to air quality concerns. Don’t let the sad reality bring you down; there are many things we can do about it ❣️
When we think about food waste, another topic comes to mind...food labeling, those dates that indicate Best by/Use by/ Sell by. In our September HHH, we took you through the meaning of those dates, remember?
The key was that they didn’t indicate food safety and focused primarily on packaging as reference points for supermarkets and retailers. Why? We can audit ourselves and think about the problem holistically, even beyond food, and consider the single-use containers we purchase.
Questions to ask ourselves: What fills up my trash bin most often? Why am I throwing away these items? How often am I throwing away items that weren't used or weren’t empty? Was there another use that i didn't consider? Imagine if everyone thought like this..woohooo 🚣🏾♂️
Types of Foods that are especially sensitive to spoiling:
Melon 🍈
Soft-skinned fruits and vegetables 🍅,
Berries 🫐
Packaged and prewashed vegetables 🥕🥦,
Dairy products 🥛
Foods stored next to items that may ripen them sooner (like bananas) 🍌
Avocados 🥑
Cooked rice 🍚 (even when refrigerated)
10 Ways we can reduce our food waste at home:
Shop often for produce.
Designate bulk buying for dry goods.
Rely on your senses to determine if food is edible.
Create a compost bin in your kitchen, garden, or yard, or drop off food scraps in city-provided compost bins or your local community garden (linked below).
Freeze fruits/vegetables/bread/nuts/cooked food when you have excess.
Save end cuts of veggies in the freezer and make a vegetable stock/broth.
Share with a friend.
Organize a potluck with friends and family.
Donate extra food to a community fridge or soup kitchen. Ask a shelter if you can drop off meals.
Cook the foods you love, so you’ll want to eat them until they're gone!
Find a Garden ⬇️
https://www.nycgovparks.org/greenthumb/community-gardens
https://www.communitygarden.org/garden
RECIPE OF THE MONTH
Food Scrap Vegetable Stock
Ingredients:
Any cuts of onions, carrots, celery, peppers, tomato tops, stems, or wilted herbs, you saved in the freezer while you were cooking all month. (The only thing you don't want to add is citrus peels as they can make the broth bitter.)
Place all of your food scraps on a sheet tray, season your veggies lightly with salt and olive oil, and set the oven to 375 degrees for 15 minutes.
Place a big pot on the stove fill it halfway up with water, add a bay leaf, salt, and pepper and let it come to a boil.
Remove the roasted veggies from the stove drop them directly into the pot of water, bring it to a low simmer, and cover for 2 hours. (Stock can be made in as little as an hour but the longer you simmer the veggies in the water the more flavor you extract from them into your stock. )
Keep an eye on this pot to ensure the water doesn’t evaporate away too quickly. Tip: You can always add more water.
Remove from the heat, strain to remove veggie solids from the stock, and let cool for 1 hour before pouring into containers before freezing or storing in the fridge. Stock lasts for many months in the freezer!
Use for flavorful broths, risottos, congee, soups, pasta sauces, braises, and stews all season long 🥣!
Recipe courtesy of our CEO’s first term in culinary school. Stock was the very first thing she learned to make 💙
REMINDERS
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Please take photos of your bags, and what you make with your items, tag us on Instagram, and share photos with us 😊, we’d love to learn from you, and your family recipes!
We hope you enjoy this month’s Grocery bag 💚 - TGF
Students from our partner schools packed these bags for you!
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Your most powerful medicine is in your mind, in your heart & on your plate.
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