Tonight I watched a special on the Food Network called "The Big Waste". Four popular chefs were challenged to cook a meal worthy of fine dining for 100 people. The catch, all ingredients are to be foods that were on their way to the garbage bins.
It's amazing the kinds of foods sitting in the back of stores just waiting to be trashed. These items are not always cheap either. Expensive foods like Halibut, Clams, Beef ribs, and loads of fruits and vegetables all thrown away because they have a tiny nick or they've simply been returned to the store.
Think about when you shop for your groceries. When picking out a peach, will you pick the one that has a small pinkie finger sized cut, or the unblemished perfect peach? That one with the small cut gets thrown away because no one wants to buy it. There is absolutely nothing different about it besides that very tiny area.
Now think about all the homeless, starving people in the world. Instead of using this unwanted food it's thrown away. We are a spoiled nation. We've been taught to expect the best of everything. Foods oddly shaped or simply fruit picked from an orchard that's fallen from the ground is ignored. If it's not normal or "pretty" its got to be bad right? Wrong!
If you haven't watched this special I highly recommend it. It really makes you think how wasteful we all are. I'm sad to say I'm just as guilty. I use to throw out meat all the time because I was forced to buy more than I really needed to. I either had to cook it all and eat it over several days, or throw away uncooked meat. Freezing it always resulted in freezer burn and less room in my fridge.
My MIL has a vacuum sealer so when she buys her meat she cuts the large packages into portions before they are frozen. That way when she cooks she isn't using more than whats needed. When we are on our own again I see that we are going to save a lot of money by having one of them.
What do you do to avoid wasting food?
