Prevent Wasted Food

No “Alligator Pears” left behind

Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers!

The sunshine season has finally arrived here in the Mid-Willamette Valley, and with it the bursting cornucopias of fresh colorful fruits and veggies in our local gardens and Farmers’ Markets — from strawberries, beans and broccoli to cherries, peaches and snap peas. Hooray for our local growers and harvesters!

One “fruit” I particularly enjoy that is not grown locally is avocado — also known as the “alligator pear” because of its shape and mottled, reptilian-like skin. Botanically speaking, it is a fruit (actually a berry)! It’s also a nutritional superstar, containing healthy fats, fiber, potassium and an impressive profile of other vitamins that make it a staple of healthy and specialized diets like keto.

NFLB’s “Avocado Hero” mascot

Many of the avocados consumed in the U.S. are grown in California, so they are plentiful in Oregon. I love ’em stuffed and on toast, in guacamole, sushi, fresh salads, dressing, salsa and many other dishes. Avocado is also a prime ingredient in high quality cooking oil, skin care and cosmetic products.

But as I have experienced — and I bet you have too — avocados are highly perishable! How often do you need more than one and bring home a discounted mesh bag of avocados, intending to make a big dish of guacamole (we love this recipe from First Alternative Co-op)… only to find yourself stuck with a batch of mushy, shriveled or off-tasting avos several days later?

For sure it happens, and I CONFESS: I’m still working on “no alligator pears left behind”! I tend to waste 1-2 a month, for varying reasons (more on that below).

Credit: California Avocado Commission

HOW TO RIPEN & STORE YOUR “ALLIGATOR PEARS”

The first thing to remember about avocados after you get them home is that they emit ethylene, a naturally-occurring gas given off by certain fruits (such as bananas, apples and tomatoes) as part of their maturation cycle.

This off-gassing will speed up the ripening (and potential waste) of nearby fruit or veggies. If you want to help those rock-hard avocados along in that process, place them in a paper bag (not plastic), labeled, with the date.

  • Check these tips from the experts in the avocado industry. (They do NOT recommend consuming the pits!)
  • As advised in our handy A-Z Fruit and Vegetable Storage Guide, store them separately from other fruits or veggies on the counter and check often for ripeness, before transferring to a visible/accessible spot in the fridge (your “Eat First” area). (Keep separate.)
  • One of our regular Kitchen Confessions readers has discovered the egg rack in the refrigerator door is perfect for storing avocados!
  • To prevent browning on cut avocados, spritz on some lemon or lime juice and store in an airtight container or wrapped in plastic.
  • Check Still Tasty.com for more details about storing fresh avocados.
Credit: California Avocado Commission

WHAT TO DO WITH THOSE OVER-RIPE “ALLIGATOR PEARS”

  • PUREE ‘EM and stick ’em in puddings or smoothies! BigOven.com has lots of recipes for Chocolate Avocado mousse.
  • BAKE WITH ‘EM: Make avocado chocolate chip brownies or muffins! Check your favorite foodie website or blog.
  • FREEZE ‘EM (after slicing or pureeing) and transfer to freezer-safe containers for later use (don’t forget to make a note on your handy Freezer Inventory!)
  • DON’T MAKE GUAC WITH ‘EM! In my experience, bad avos ruin the taste.
  • GROW AN AVOCADO HOUSEPLANT with the pit.

*****

Now for this edition’s Kitchen Confessions!

Karen’s dead alligator pear
Half eaten, not enjoyed; the other half went into a smoothie

KAREN CONFESSES:

I love avocados, but can never eat a whole one at one time. Even when I buy just one at a time and try to carefully monitor its ripening, I frequently end up with the other half becoming inedible!

At left, an avo that was at the appropriate stage of ripeness. But during a recent roadtrip, it had spent some time in and out of the cooler, and had begun to spoil. After a couple of off-tasting spoonfuls, I made a shake with the rest.

At right, a dead avo that I put in a paper bag on the counter to ripen, then forgot that it was in there! (It was an unlabeled, nondescript paper bag that I managed to ignore.)

$$$ WASTED: Around $5-$6/month

LESSONS LEARNED: Mark the bag or put an “Eat First” label on my brown bagged avocados. Also I will probably start buying two avocados at a time, use one right away, and follow my own advice to puree/freeze one avocado for later!

Avocado sticker by local company, Plant Posse

NO FOOD LEFT BEHIND IN THE MEDIA
Did you see our spread in the Summer 2021 issue of the Co-op Thymes? Many thanks to Editor Adam Payson for this wonderful feature!

Recipe contest for leftovers!

Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers!

It’s time for something different with our Kitchen Confessions. We’re going to talk about recipes — and we’re going to ask for YOURS!

You could win one of three $30 gift cards to First Alternative Co-op!

We haven’t delved much into the topic of recipes before, but they are certainly key to achieving our goal of less wasted food in the home — because:

  • Recipes can provide both inspiration and how-to.
  • They can jump start your meal planning and shopping lists.
  • Whether your cooking approach is conventional or freestyle, recipes can help you feel creative when confronted with that assortment of random food items in your “Eat First” food storage areas.
  • Recipes can help you use what you have and make the most of those grocery $$ you already spent!

During the past 11 months, we’ve explored why wasted food matters and what you can do about it. We’ve reminded ourselves that 30-40% of edible food in the U.S. ends up in the trash or compost pail instead of being eaten, representing a deplorable amount of wasted water, energy, labor, and money. For an average American family of four, that’s at least $1600/year!

We’ve offered strategies and resources — like our handy “Eat First” signs, in English and Spanish — for helping you, Conscientious Food Consumers, take steps for preventing that waste from happening at home and for stretching your food dollars during this pandemic era. Check out Adventures in Leftovers Land and our previous Kitchen Confessions for topics you may have missed.

Now it’s your turn! We’d love to publicize your unique recipes made from leftovers.

Share those dishes that spring forth from the items in the “Eat First!” areas of your fridge, freezer or pantry before they spoiled, shriveled, freezer-burned or became otherwise inedible. It can be as simple as a short narrative of your list of leftovers and other ingredients you combine into a surprisingly delicious meal, OR a more traditional-style recipe listing of the ingredients and the step-by-step for your unique creation. 

Here’s how to submit your recipe — but please keep reading for important details!

HINT: We’re not looking for recipes from your favorite celebrity chef or America’s Test Kitchen! We prefer YOUR home-tested recipes that are a) relatively simple, b) don’t involve much prep time or specialized appliances, and c) DO involve using up leftover food items.

Here’s a few examples:

  • Stir-fried leftover pasta and veggies
  • Chunky veggie patty “meatball” soup
  • Whatever’s-in-the-fridge casserole or burritos
  • Brown Rice Breakfast Porridge
  • Dill cream sauce using leftover pickle juice — from the Waste Free Kitchen Handbook, by Dana Gunders (one of my favorite references while writing this blog)

So whether your approach to meal preparation is formal or freestyle, we’re interested in what you come up with. We also want to encourage kid-friendly recipe submissions. Maybe your young chef has a great recipe to share!

2019 Winter Farmers’ Market patrons

Qualified recipe submissions will be entered into a random drawing to win one of three $30 gift cards to First Alternative Co-op.

TO QUALIFY:

Recipes submitted must be appropriately attributed, either solely to you (family member, etc.), or otherwise identified as to its source. It’s fine if you build your creation around a recipe from a cookbook or website (like our favorites FoodHero.org and BigOven.com) then made it your own, but please tell us where you get it! (We cannot re-publish copyrighted material.)

  1. What’s the name of your dish? Is it for vegans, vegetarians or omnivores? Is it kid-friendly?
  2. What was the inspiration for your dish?
  3. Your recipe, identifying the leftover or Eat First! food items you used from your fridge, freezer or pantry as the primary ingredients. Use as many as you can!
  4. Estimate how much $$ you saved by not wasting those leftover items.
  5. Include 1-2 photos of what you made (and a selfie if you like).

Use our Recipe Submission page to send it by Sunday April 11th (deadline extended from April 4th).

We will randomly draw (3) winners and announce them in our Earth Day blog and Coalition email lists. We’ll also highlight a number of our favorite recipe entries, and may publish an online cookbook. Stay Tuned!

EVERY RECIPE is an entry to win a $30 GIFT CARD! Submit more than one if you like, but please no more than four.

We’re looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

Smart shopping and $aving — not just for the holidays!

Happy Holiday Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers!

As we head into the final stretch of this unprecedented year, we hope you are discovering some new and creative ways to experience holiday cheer this season. Not to mention good bargains (no matter which holiday you shop for)!

Those holiday sales at the grocery store can sure make it difficult to stick to a shopping list — especially with lures like “Buy one/Get one!” (BOGO) and “Rewards”! But we all know from experience what happens when we don’t… and then the bank card statements arrive. It also tends to result in wasted food and wasted money.

Shopping lists are certainly a lot more high-tech now than in the bygone era pictured above, but I still prefer an old-fashioned paper list (soon to become an antique as well?). There’s endless apps for your smart phone, or you can download and print out our “Smart Shopping with Meals in Mind” form.

Over $7 billion spent in 2020 online grocery shopping

Shopping sure looks different now than it did at the beginning of the year, doesn’t it? We’ve de-coupled socializing and shopping, and learned to keep our distance in the store aisles. We stand on colored circles on the floor as we wait for our turn at the checkout. Online grocery sales in the U.S. grew from $1.2 billion in August 2019 to an over $7 billion industry as of June 2020.

On the plus side of online grocery shopping —  we’re pretty much forced to use lists! Whether you’re ordering through a local supermarket chain, an independent market (like NFLB and Sustainability Coalition partner First Alternative Co-op), or a non-local supplier, you have to get organized and be very specific (quantity, brand and other attributes). With service fees and tips on top of that grocery bill, we are likely to be more careful with our ordering.

Another plus — when someone else is fulfilling your order, it’s easier to resist impulse buying and off-list purchases!

On the down side — the carbon footprint associated with online order fulfillment and delivery, including all that packaging! And don’t forget your vehicle emissions from picking up your own order. For more information on the environmental impacts of food packaging, check out NFLB’s links to Oregon DEQ’s Food Fact sheets.

One of Karen’s recent shopping lists

K’RENE CONFESSES: There are definitely times when I don’t use a shopping list… and I always end up having to go back for the things I forgot or really needed!

Sometimes I find myself “pigging out” on spending for extra treats or costly specialty items. While I enjoy being spontaneous in the store on occasion, those indulgences certainly add up.

Stick To The List so you don’t “pig out” with your shopping cart!

At this stage of the 2020 holiday season, Conscientious Food Consumers and Shoppers, we realize you may have already completed the bulk of your holiday shopping. So consider how the following tips can facilitate your “Smart Shopping and $avings” heading into the New Year:

  1. Shop your fridge/freezer and pantry first! Be sure to make notes as appropriate on your Freezer Inventory.
  2. In the spirit of eating locally, keeping our shopping dollars in the community (at least some of them) — and potentially reducing the carbon footprint of your purchases — consciously decide which items you can Buy Local First, either in person or online.
  3. Skip those BOGO deals, “family sized” meals or quantity packages unless… you can realistically manage that influx of food products. Assess your household’s eating habits and the state of your pantry. Are you sure you can properly store, plan and prep it all before it loses its freshness and store appeal?
    — Maybe your two-person household hasn’t eaten its way through the Thanksgiving leftovers in the freezer yet.
    — Do your kids really like that brand of cereal enough to justify buying a big box or two?
    — Does your fridge really have room for most of that five-pound bag of tangerines? (They shouldn’t be kept outside of cold storage for more than a week.)
    Don’t be tempted to “save” a few dollars on food that will eventually go to waste!
  4. Use a shopping list app like Big Oven (if you don’t already have one).
  5. Take a “Shelfie”! If you want to make sure you’ve remembered everything for your list, take a quick picture of your fridge or pantry shelf for reference. Shout out to Love Food/Hate Waste and WRAP in the U.K. for this clever name and idea!
  6. For even more ideas (and your New Year’s resolutions), scan this list of 75 tips for saving $$ on food from TheKitchn. We don’t necessarily endorse all of these, and some are not that original or relevant to our region. But we’re pleased to see No Food Left Behind’s standard recommendations in the top five of the list!

Do you have some Smart Shopping tips you’d like to share? If so, please submit them in the comments section below.

Happy Safe Holidays, Conscientious Consumers!!

Adventures in Leftover Land

Greetings Conscientious Food Consumers!

With Thanksgiving not far off, we figured we’d get ahead of the game and talk leftovers in this installment of Kitchen Confessions. The topic’s not as sexy as these carrots, but it’s one of those everyday challenges that we all face.

Those miscellaneous meal remnants, half-full containers, and portions of what-have-you, DO tend to get out of hand, don’t they?

Somehow they migrate to the most inconvenient recesses of your fridge. They get hijacked by microbes or neglected during busy times, like a tough week of homeschooling. They get abandoned in favor of preferred foods or convenience meals. They might even get skipped on Leftovers Night. Let’s admit it — leftovers do get left behind sometimes!

Eat First! examples from K’Rene’s fridge shelf

K’RENE CONFESSES right off the bat here: about half of the wasted food in my household once occupied the designated “Eat First” area of my fridge and cupboard. So what’s my issue? Keeping up with leftovers means keeping them accessible and safe to eat, as well as keeping track of what’s in there!

It also takes a deliberate and creative effort to transform random food elements into a meal. I’m happy to report that it can be a pretty satisfying process! Maybe even a bit of an adventure…

K’RENE ALSO CONFESSES: Two of the seven leftover items in the first photo (apple, sliced overripe pear, half a lime, a third of a packet of precooked rice, half a large roasted chile, a bit less than half a red onion, half-jar curry paste) got spoiled, wasted and composted. Fortunately, the rest found their way into oatmeal, stir fry and a pot of chili!

$$ WASTED: approximately $30

LESSON LEARNED: I’m now a fan of BigOven and its inspirational three-ingredient search engine for its massive recipe database, which includes gluten-free, vegan/vegetarian, keto and low-carb dietary options. It’s been both a delight and an Adventure to rummage for what I have on hand, plug it into the recipe search feature and see what comes up. This makes it fun to meal plan, so I’ve stepped up my diligence and am loving my leftovers more!

Of course, BigOven is also available as an app (which we featured in this “Kitchen Confessions”).

NO CORNBREAD LEFT OVERS LEFT BEHIND: These muffins were made from that “expired” cornbread mix featured in our “Check it before you chuck it” Kitchen Confessions a few weeks ago. The adventure began with a couple of chopped poblano chile peppers thrown in to jazz up the batter, which produced a baker’s dozen muffins. Half of them tasted good enough for outright scarfing and sharing with a friend! The “leftover” muffins were crumbled, seasoned and simmered with leeks and garlic for stuffing butternut squash, garnished with leftover feta cheese. No corn bread muffins left behind…

K’Rene’s everyday vs “company coffee” pots — drip vs perk (lower energy use) and fewer “cuppas” leftover/left behind

LEFTOVER COFFEE BUZZ: Turns out yesterday’s coffee brightens up lots of things besides brain cells — from milkshakes and smoothies to salad dressing, chili, brownies, bacon and BBQ sauce.

Coffee and bacon are staples of the typical American breakfast, but cooking the bacon in coffee is certainly a new idea to me!

NOTE: For my daily cuppa, I try to avoid “over-preparation” and waste of this global commodity by brewing small batches. Many days there’s nothing left in the pot, but it’s great to have ways to put it to good use on the days when there ‘s a half or full cup left over.

I also keep in mind the environmental costs and carbon footprint associated with my coffee enjoyment, as described in this Coffee Fact Sheet from the Oregon Department of Environment Quality.

A few other discoveries from my adventures in “Leftover Land”:

  • “LAST TWO BAGELS” bread pudding
  • Leftover FETA, OLIVE & KALE FRITTATA (lots of variations on this one!)
  • GREEN SMOOTHIE, featuring ripe avocado, and/or other past-their-prime fruits and veggies
  • SAUTEED WILTED LETTUCE  & GREENS — a great use of those partial-packages of mixed greens that might otherwise get dumped at the first sign of slimy-ness
  • YOGURT SUNDAE with leftover jam and coconut flakes
  • FROZEN BERRY-BANANA-“LYCOPENE SMOOTHIE” with — you guessed it — tomatoes left over from the last season. After all, tomato is a fruit!

JEANETTE CONFESSES:

Ugh! I’ve been doing the right things the wrong way. With teenager sleepovers, I never know how much batter we’ll need — but I figure I’ll use it up in the next day or two. The leftover batters were properly placed onto our “Eat First!” shelf, and I even date-labeled them. A Smart Strategy, right?

However, other still-edible Eat First items ended up in front of them and, well, they aged out. Creatively using up sour milk is one thing, but with raw eggs involved, there’s no way my pancakes or French toast would have been safe to use.

These wasted beets were a bummer — they also got left behind other leftovers. There were four cooked beets to a package, but I only needed one that night. Subsequently, I forgot the rest of them, despite my date label.

LESSONS LEARNED:

  • Be more conscientious about using up items on my Eat First! shelf.
  • Limit how much we put there so things don’t get buried — kind of the whole point of that area!
  • Be mindful about creating leftovers in the first place – make juuusst enough batter so there’s nothing to store.

$$ Wasted: About $2, for two organic eggs and those portions of gluten free pancake mix and almond milk. However, this lesson also presented a disposal issue, because we’re supposed to keep liquids out of the compost. Almost forgot my wasted beets — so ACTUALLY $4 in total.

Learning to waste less food is both a journey and an adventure!

No more “freeze it and forget it”!

If you were expecting a lurid foodie tale about eager veggies, twisting around each other in the privacy of soil, only to be exposed by a hungry, voyeuristic gardener, that’s an entirely different blog!

If you have forgotten freezer food, you are in the right place!

Many well-meaning freezer users have put good food away for later, but then forgot it there and it froze to death.

This unfortunate habit is just like throwing edible food into the garbage, simply because the outcome is the same… and composting it is only one step better than garbage. 

When you include the cost of running an overfull freezer, plus any gas spent driving it home, the cost of disposal (if you don’t compost it), all the many resources that went into growing it and so on, that forgotten freezer food could become your “kitchen confession”! Wasted food happens to all of us… even our staff!

The easy solution is a Freezer Inventory, one of our many Smart Strategies!  It’s a simple 8.5″ x 11″ form you can download, print out and hang on the front of your fridge or freezer, and change as you go (also en Español). We recommend using a pencil for easier updating.Here’s how to use it!

 

ADDITIONAL TIPS:

  • Another Smart Strategy is our Eat First! signs (also en Español), to use anywhere in your kitchen to help ID which items need to be used up the soonest. Simply print and trim, and apply to any food or shelf containing those items!
  • Overfull freezers function less efficiently! CONFESSION: Recently, my own freezer was too stuffed and the little vent/fan at the back sounded awful! It was working too hard, and frost had built up… if I hadn’t noticed, my whole freezer motor might have failed. Yikes! A lesson to keep it clear and not too full.
  • Items in the freezer door are subject to greater temperature variations, so be more mindful of what gets stored there.
  • Food safety also depends on maintaining consistent fridge and freezer temperatures, so be sure to keep your fridge between 38°F and 42°F and your freezer between 0°F and 5°F to be safe.
  • Remember: most frozen food is safe indefinitely, but be sure to double-wrap food and eat it before it’s freezer burned.

 

I CONFESS: We were still “freezing and forgetting” stuff at home when we started No Food Left Behind – Corvallis. I hadn’t yet implemented this Smart Strategy! Since we did, we’ve had no more freezer-burned food, items are rotated out more often, and everything is getting used. The Freezer Inventory really works and our family is saving money in the process!

Not only that, but our meals have also become more varied as we’ve forced ourselves to get creative with ingredients we might not normally put together. I often consult BigOven.com’s leftovers page, which enables users to type in two or three ingredients and receive existing recipes that use those very items. Just click on “BigOven, what can I make?” – highly recommended! BigOven also offers an app – click here for NFLB’s favorite apps!

Thank you in advance for recommending our Freezer Inventory to any friends with forgotten freezer foods… and if you need one too, that’s okay! This is Kitchen Confessions, and your story is safe with us.  😉  We invite you to share your stories in the comments! Confessions? Or maybe you started using the inventory and want to celebrate? Let us know.

As for those lurid carrots, we’ll have to get to the ROOT of that some other day…