Average American sees 50% waste of food, what is it like on your homestead?

Doubt it is us country folk who waste much food --we never have garbage between the dogs,chickens and compost pile. But know my DD wastes so much food it is shameful. Will go shopping with the best of intentions to cook/eat at home and then goes out to eat 'cause she is too tired or just doesn't feel like cooking and when I come on the weekends for my job I clean out various disgusting items. I'll point out a couple of easy meals from what's there and she'll cook a couple of nites and then back out to eat...with a freezer full of food. Just last weekend I showed her you could make sloppy joes in 10 minutes from scratch....no jar! Then Parmesan chicken in 20 minutes....and she is always complaining about not being able to save money. So now I have her saving her grocery receipts and checking off what gets wasted...boy, already an eyeopener to her!!!!! She even has a little garden outside her apartment and will ignore ripe produce and run to McD's....arrrrgh! DEE

Almost no food waste here. Anything we don't eat or is going around the bend is given to the chickens, milk cow, barn cats, or the dog. We do throw out a few bags of really ancient, rotten veg that become slime in a fridge draw once or twice a year, but that's it.

Claire

We don't waste any food here. Anything we don't eat goes to the hogs, dogs, or cats. Except for bones and those go to the compost pile. My brother on the other hand will cook a huge meal, eat one small plate, and dump the rest into the garbage .

I know that I waste WAY too much food...the biggest problem I have is that I make too much for supper and then the leftovers never get eaten. I have been trying very hard to cook just enough so that there aren't any leftovers. Unless of course it is something that is guaranteed that the leftovers will get eaten like roast and shepherd's pie! :haha:

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Sarah ~ Homeschooling SAHM and beginning Homesteader

I don't think we really have ANY food waste on our homestead.

Every night I cook supper and include enough for my 83 year old mama who lives next door.

If there are leftovers that we don't eat in a day or two, they go to the chickens (who convert it into lovely compost) or the rabbits (who do their part composting too), the goats, or the dogs....the cats don't eat much "human" food....

Before we had the chickens we put any leftovers in the compost pile but now the chickens do the composting via their stomachs!

When we lived in the city we used to have a lot of waste. We would have these conversations that went like this.

Him: Honey, here's another bowl of leftovers from the other night. We shouldn't waste so much, and here's another.

Me: DH, I was planning on having that for dinner the other night but you decided we had to eat out.

Him: Honey, well why didn't we have it last night? We were home!

Me: DH, You decided you didn't want that last night, remember?

And I wouldn't put it in the freezer like a good girl because I had planned and he changed my plans.

We don't lose anything now. I remind him that he's tired of wasting food and it gets eaten or he doesn't eat.

We eat it in a day or two or put it in the freezer immediately or we feed it to the cats, chickens or pigs.

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Only IMMORAL people are against MORALITY.

Just about the only thing that goes to waste around here is cooked chicken bones. I won't feed them to the dogs. Most anything we don't eat gets eaten by the cats, dogs, chickens, ducks, deer, or compost.

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Layton Hollow ADGA Nubians
Taking Reservation for 2015!

We don't have any food waste here, either. If we don't eat it, the chickens do, or the goats, or the dog. If they don't or can't eat it it goes into the compost pile to go back into the garden another year. The goats leave the coarse stems of their alfalfa hay, and I'm going to get rabbits in part to feed those coarse stems to, although I do use some of it for goat bedding. We almost never eat out, partly because of a very tight budget, and partly because DD and I have celiac disease and it's really safest for us to eat what I cook myself at home. I worked in a private boarding school kitchen for a while some years back, and they threw a LOT of food out. I was pretty shocked at the amount of food that went into garbage cans for the local pig farmer, but at least it was getting used and not going into a landfill.

Kathleen

I guess I need chickens, goats and pigs! LOL!!!

Even when I lived in the city I hardly wasted any food. You have to be realistic about what you will really eat, then shop and cook accordingly. I have known people who simply overshop over and over and end up throwing away moldy fruit and soured milk. It's no savings to buy a gallon of milk if you are going to throw away half of it or a quart of it because your family doesn't drink that much. When we had kids, I'd spend more on two half gallon jugs than one full gallon because milk keeps better if it's not opened. A little common sense can do wonders in the waste department.

During the summer garden glut, a lot of food accumulates that we do not eat, gets too ripe, too dry, something else looks/tastes much better. Most of our surplus goes to the poultry. They delight in corn that is past its prime. In the winter, there is soup. A can of tomato soup with odds and ends of leftovers tossed in it.

About 30 years ago we lived near a supermarket. They tossed veggies and fruits out into the dumpster, and my son and I would scrummage around in there, looking for guinia pig treats, but finding beautiful apples, oranges, and once a large sack of kimquots (best marmalade I've ever eaten). Now you cannot get vegetable trimmings even on bended, begging knee. Eons ago I worked in a hospital kitchen. The diswasher kept a separate trash can, and scraped in usable food scraps for his pigs. He said he processed it somehow or other so any people germs wouldn't hurt his pigs. Try that these days.

When I was a kid, we had waxed paper. Leftovers got wrapped in wax paper. Then there were little shower caps for bowls. Then al foil. Then plastic bags. Why do you need zip locks?????? I have armloads of plastic bags, even I use cotton totes at the groc. store. Put the stuff in several layers of plastic, seal well and don't forget to label. It will keep for a week or two or three without freezer burn.