Food Waste is a climate culprit (and a societal dirge), so how is Mid Green Family tackling our food waste this month? What about composting?
January goals are all about reducing carbon emissions to do with our food. The total supply chain of food production accounts for about one quarter of global GHGs (greenhouse gas emissions).
It's a great month to tackle this topic as we're all highly motivated in the new year. Yummy summer fruits and veg are in abundance making it a good time to learn new recipes. Its light enough at night to barbecue and light enough (and warm enough) in the morning to get up early and water the garden.
Mid Green goals to reduce food waste -
✅ Buy less and plan for leftovers
✅ Bits & pieces lunches
✅ Prep before freezing
✅ Compost the rest
We've all opened up the fridge to find that limp, slightly smelly, tail end of the baby spinach bag that gets thrown straight to the garbage. The longest I've ever gone feeling relatively guilt free on the food waste front was the year we had Oscar, the rescue rabbit for a year.
Apologies to all the bunny lovers but rabbits - NOT the great pets you thought for little kids. Cute as a button, but as prey animals they get scared when picked up and will eat your electrical cords.
Mid Green Family would LOVE to get chickens🐔, but that feels like an ambitious future goal and I'm not sure there's enough room in our little yard, that I would make time for mucking out the coop every day and even if the council allows it?
Composting and avoiding waste in the first place are the next best thing for us to achieve our Mid Green Family's road to sustainable living and our #netzero goals.
The smart stuff: what even is food waste
Facts and stats -
Australians produce 7-8 tonnes of food waste a year. That waste produces 7.6mtCO2e and costs $36.6 Billion a year [1, 3]
Households represent about 34% of total food waste in Australia. [1]
Less than 8% of household food waste is being composted. [1]
Halving global food waste would save 364 Gtonnes of CO2e and reduce GHG's (greenhouse gas emissions) from all food production by 27% [2]
sources: [1 A Roadmap for reducing Australia’s food waste by half by 2030] [2 Our World in Data] [3 Tackling Australia’s food waste, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment & Water]
Why would we only aim to halve our food waste? Wouldn't we want to get rid of as much food wastage as possible?
Apart from being a bit of a challenging ask, food waste includes not just those nasty furry things that will, eventually, have to be rescued from the tupperware I am nurturing them in, but also the bits that we might consider a little inedible. You know, like seeds of fruit, animal bones, coffee & tea grounds, any skins, or peels etc. We can learn to minimise but probably not eradicate all food waste.
Food waste goals #1: Buy less and plan for leftovers
The best way to reduce food waste in the household? Just don't buy so much!!!
Sounds simple, but most of our household food waste comes from overbuying. There are many different strategies for not overbuying - using a list, meal planning, or only going out to buy what you need for dinner on the day.
As a busy mum of two, I prefer to plan the dinners for the week in advance. I have found that that there are usually leftovers when the kids aren't hungry that night, they don't like the dinner (sigh), or you've just over catered. So for our goals, I'm cutting down how many dinners I plan for in the week (and therefore how many ingredients I buy) in the weekly shop.
There is usually enough leftovers or odds and ends to scrape a dinner together from without breaking into new ingredient territory. This strategy has been working much better for us over Jan to reduce how much food is being chucked or composted.
Food waste goals #2: Get into bits & pieces lunches
Similar to planning for less meals, the bits and pieces lunch is a no plan marvel. It looks a little like this -
"Mum, what's for lunch?"
"Whatever you can find in the fridge."
"Can I have bocconcini?" (yes, my 10 yr old has weird taste)
"Uh sure, as long as you have something else with it!"
Then proceed to make sure there is a protein and carb option to go with whatever else is chosen. Boiled eggs, remainders of dips and scraps of slightly stale bread toasted and cut into triangles or strips for adding bits to go down well in a bits & pieces lunch.
Grab a bento box, the cutting board, pull half your fridge out and encourage all those remaining bits and pieces to be eaten!
My bits and pieces lunch from the other day - getting on sourdough (toasted) pate on one piece (ooh la la), scrapings of pesto on the other, topped with leftover cooked green lentils, tail end of the spinach and some seasoning. 👌
Food waste goals #3: Prep before freezing
I love my freezer. But it can be where the food that didn't die in my fridge goes to live in purgatory, frozen for eternity, rock solid and unidentifiable in the depths of the freezer drawer. Noone starts off like this. You put that chicken breast in there fully intending to turn it into something wonderful at a later date. Diligently pull it out and defrost overnight in the bottom of the fridge. But it just never seems to be the same this way.
My (newfound) trick? Prep before freezing! Stolen from the practical & inspiring women of One Handed Cooks and their awesome freezer dump bags, the idea is to prep your meal before you freeze it. Chop veg and meat, add sauce ingredients and later, when it's time to defrost, very little effort has to be put in to getting a meal on the table. This method is ideal for casseroles, soups, curries and any other one-pot wonders in your repertoire.
When I can't be bothered with a whole meal prep, my other halfway house is to do some of the prep - like removing the fat or chopping chicken into pieces before freezing. Also chopping fresh pumpkin or veges before adding to the freezer just makes them seem so much more approachable and therefore much more likely to make it to the cooking pot on the other side of their journey.
Food waste goals #4: Compost the rest!
When all is said and done, there is still food waste to contend with. Meat scraps and bones go straight to the bin for us, but I'm determined to start freezing bones and carcasses at least to make stock ahead of the winter months.
Since we started our bits and pieces lunches, we've had hardly any bread scraps so that's not an issue, but stale bread can go in your compost too. That leaves apple cores, fruit skins, ends of cucumbers, carrots and capsicums, eggshells, the sad ends of herbs and tea bags as our most frequently composted items. I have seem some wonderfully enthusiastic bloggers also freeze and save the ends of carrots and celery leaves and the like to also chuck in the stock pot, so this might go on our future goals / when there's room list.
Because I want to avoid adding more single use plastic, I don't buy freezer bags anymore. Meaning my freezable items are generally going in tupperware of all sizes and descriptions and the EverEco silicone bags.
In later months I'll be monitoring my total waste, so all these good composting habits will build up to contribute to the waste reduction part of our journey to #netzero emissions. Meanwhile if you're struggling to compost, remember that it doesn't have to be complicated.
My system = a bowl on the counter to throw the scraps in while cooking and cleaning, and 2 old tubs with some holes drilled in the bottom that hold about 4-6 weeks' worth of composting, giving me the time needed to decompose before it can be mixed into the planters and garden pots.
It ain't pretty, but it does the job.
All in all, giving my food waste reduction attempts for January a solid 9/10 overall.
Some work to do in prepping before freezing so those frozen item don't become next quarters food waste. Aim is to keep the bits and pieces lunches going for returning to school and work post summer holidays.
Mid Green goals to reduce food waste | Jan progress | Next steps |
Buy less and plan for leftovers | ✅ Good progress, solid 8/10 | Keep up the good work |
Bits & pieces lunches | ✅ Achieved 10/10! | Keep it up for school / work |
Prep before freezing | ✅ A bit of getting used to, 6/10 | More freezer dump bags to ease the mid week meal prep |
Compost the rest | ✅ Achieved 10/10! | Keep it up. Try freezing veg ends for stock. |
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