5 Ways to Minimize: Your Food Waste
My Mexico kitchen, back when someone else cleaned it.
Our local grocery store has delivery now, which is great, especially since the hardest part of shopping is lugging the groceries up our pedestrian-only steep alley (a traditional callejon, one of the charms/pains of Guanajuato) to our house.
However, I am learning by trial and error in the produce ordering, because apparently I have no concept of what a kilo of various things actually is (yes, I know a kilo is 2.2 pounds, but I also have no idea how much a pound is). A kilo of onions can be just two big ones, whereas a kilo of green beans is a lotttt. Oh density.
Since we eat mostly vegetarian, most of my weekly shopping is fresh fruits and veg. In developing countries where it is almost always warm, there is always something in season. Canned or frozen are often imported so much more expensive, including things you might take for granted like pasta sauce - those I make from scratch.
Apparently, people like me who eat lots of fresh produce are the worst food wasters in America.
Food waste is horrible for lots of reasons, including social justice, environmental, and financial. Here are some new and old tricks I have picked up to minimize our household food waste.
Know Thyself
Leafy greens are what always ends up going bad in my fridge. I know they are great for you, but we don’t eat that many salads and any other use is too small to get through a large amount before it gets slimy. So, I don’t buy them that often and when I do I make a plan to use them the day or day after I buy them.
Over the years I’ve gotten better at knowing by sight (not by kilo!) how much of various fruits and veg our family eats. In normal times when we shop at the farmers’ market here in Guanajuato, the limit is what two adults can carry, which is actually about the right amount for a week for us.
2. Organize your Fridge
In developing countries, refrigerators are smaller than the super-size American ones, so you have to be strategic. I try to keep things that need to be eaten soon on the top shelf so they don’t get forgotten in the back out of sight. I put leftovers in clear containers so you can tell what is inside.
At the top: mushroom confit (accidentally ordered 3kg of mushrooms…), leftover stirfry from yesterday, and mystery container from mother-in-law. Avocados all arrived ripe so put them in the fridge to extend their non-mushy lives.
Putting healthy options at 4-year-old height also allows my daughter to snack on fruit instead of fighting about marshmallows (which yes, in Tanzania we kept in the fridge because EVERYTHING molds there!).
3. Fill your Freezer
Freezing leftovers and basics that take a while to make like cooked beans, pasta sauce, and vegetable stock are no-brainers. Label them if you think you will forget what they are!
The Mexicans in my family are big fruit eaters (I’m not such a fan), but occasionally we will have some very ripe fruit on the verge of going bad. I shove them in the blender then freeze them into popsicles. Mix with a little water if they won’t blend, or for things like banana or avocado add milk and some cocoa powder for a more ice creamy flavor. I got popsicle molds from a friend in Mali a million years ago, but you can also just use plastic cups and plastic utensils, or chopsticks, or whatever else you have around.
Leftover fruit popsicles for the win!
When bananas get really brown, you can put them in the freezer to make banana bread later.
On the veg side, I learned how to blanch and freeze the ones we eat the most when I was preparing for lockdown in Tanzania. It’s really easy - I’m about to do it again with this kilo of green beans I over-ordered.
I have a friend that swears you can freeze things like kale and avocados for smoothies - never tried it, but you can!
4. Pickle and Ferment
I’ve been making my own quick refrigerator pickled red onions, red cabbage, and jalapeños for tacos ever since we left Mexico. All you absolutely need is water, regular vinegar, and salt. You can add more flavors if you’re fancy. Since you keep them in the fridge, you don’t need to have special cans or go through the whole canning process. I usually just use the old empty cans I hoard. Here is how to quick pickle any vegetable.
I had a very dedicated friend in Dar who tried to make sauerkraut in a climate where cut flowers mold on your table after a day. It involved sleeping with it in her bedroom. I wasn’t willing to go that far, but eating fermented foods is supposed to keep your gut, and therefore all of you, healthy, so since we have been back in dry central Mexico I’ve also been trying my hand at fermentation.
One of my quarantine books, Put ‘Em Up, had some good tips (there are lots of other fermentation specific books out there but they had waitlists at the library…). I’ve put several recipes on my Pinterest.
So far I have tried:
Fermented jalapenos with lime (the grocery delivery brought parsley instead of cilantro, ick): not bad
Ginger bug (to make fruit sodas): after 8 days of feeding - dead, or never alive? My daughter was sad because I told her this was our pet.
Fermented salsa: the recipe said to put the lid on tightly, and when I opened it after two days it made some scary demonic noises but tastes ok?
Saurkraut: TBD, and also not sure what I’m going to eat it on…
Update- just found garlic in raw honey that I forgot about in a cupboard. This one takes several weeks and will probably be half ants by then!
In my forever home I have actual Mason jars…for my fermented salsa, fermented jalapenos, and picked red onion.
If I’m dead next week it won’t be from covid-19.
5. Compost the Scraps
I once smuggled live compost worms from South Africa to Mali with an overnight stop in Ethiopia, only to kill them almost immediately by feeding them nothing but citrus and onion peels (not much grows in Mali…).
Good news is, you don’t have to be an international trafficker to compost. NPR just did a nice summary of how to compost at home no matter what kind of home you live in.
If you’re good at the other four steps, you shouldn’t have much left to compost, just the scraps. When I’m making something with a lot of scraps, like Thanksgiving dinner, I save those pieces and make a bunch of vegetable stock. If you are really good, you can also just collect the scraps in the freezer until you have enough. At this time, I am not that good. But at least composting saves food scraps from the landfill, where they create methane gas which contributes to climate change.
My humble counter compost bin, which gets emptied into a big barrel outside.