Category Archives: Household

Hooray for Rachael

I’m not much for cooking shows. I can’t stomach all those wasted ingredients as they switch from the mixing bowl to the version finishing in the oven. Plus, they make me hungry. But I wanted to give credit where it’s due to an obscure host named Rachael Ray. You may have seen her on your box of Wheat Thins […]

October 18, 2007 | Also posted in History and Culture, Personal | Comments closed

The Weekly Waste Word: Meal Planning

A few weeks ago, we discussed the importance of making a grocery list. Going one step further, planning the week’s meals speeds up grocery shopping and reduces household food waste. Meal planning forces you to have a purpose for each purchased item (with one or two fun exceptions). Deciding on meals can be a chore, but no more so […]

October 15, 2007 | Also posted in The Weekly Waste Word | Comments closed

A Lump of History

Wow, cookbooks sure have changed! This 1916 beauty is actually a freebie distributed by Fred Scott Coal. Can you imagine anything like it today? And it’s not like Scott had any vested interest in people not wasting. More to the point, World War I was raging and while the U.S. hadn’t yet entered, Americans were […]

October 10, 2007 | Also posted in History and Culture | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Just down the road from Wasted Food HQ, they’re doing some nice work recycling food waste at UNC Chapel Hill. Now if they could only waste less… Increased food recycling isn’t necessarily a good thing. Getting students to not take more food than they eat is difficult but important work. — — Hey parents, here’s a no […]

October 5, 2007 | Also posted in Friday Buffet, Institutional | Comments closed

My Sweet Potato

OK, folks, it’s time to get personal. I want to tell you about a sweet potato I know. No, he’s not shaped like a mouse. He’s a reddish little guy I bought a few weeks ago and he’s not doing so well. Some would say he’s gone bad. A bit of mold and rot have […]

October 4, 2007 | Posted in Household | Comments closed

The Weekly Waste Word: Bagged Produce

As you might have guessed, I’m not a big fan of washed and cut produce. Sure, it’s convenient and has its uses, but for the most part it breaks down quicker than the uncut version because it exposes more of the fruit or vegetable to oxidation. It also further removes us from the idea that produce is grown and don’t […]

October 1, 2007 | Also posted in Supermarket, The Weekly Waste Word | Comments closed

Talk about waste!

Last night I spoke to a local group of young professionals about food waste. As much as I like blogging to you discerning readers, the talk was a nice opportunity to converse with an audience that could and did ask questions and challenge some assumptions.  Some attendees were curious about the statistic that we don’t eat a quarter of the […]

September 25, 2007 | Also posted in History and Culture, Personal | Comments closed

The Weekly Waste Word: hot dog buns

Specialty breads are the most frequently wasted baked goods. We’re talking about hamburger and hot dog buns, mostly. When planning a barbecue, it’s hard to know how many packages to buy and, often, we get too many for fear of running out. Then you don’t cook all the meat or people aren’t eating carbs, etc. For a variety of reasons, […]

September 10, 2007 | Also posted in Personal, The Weekly Waste Word | Comments closed

The Weekly Waste Word: Dressed for Spoilage

At the beginning of each week, I try to give readers one tip on how to avoid food waste. This week’s advice: Don’t dress a big salad. You can avoid wilty lettuce waste by serving the salad “dry.” With the dressing on the side, diners can disperse it as they see fit. One of my real pet peeves is […]

August 27, 2007 | Also posted in Restaurant, The Weekly Waste Word | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

This woman is keeping track of the food she’s throwing out in her Chucked Grub Diary. While she feeds a lot of the food to her chickens (a sound move), you and I can take note of how much food waste the average person makes.   — —   The Diet Pulpit provides an interesting perspective; I’d never conceived of wasted […]

August 24, 2007 | Also posted in Friday Buffet | Comments closed