Food Waste Friday: Food for Trash and Thought

I have two losses to report this week:

A small serving of chicken noodle soup. Caitlin likes it from a can and I’ve been trying various brands. I bought a family sized brand that she liked but it was only Caitlin eating it over the course of a few days and there was just too much.

I bought the family size because I thought I’d give some to the boys. In the end I decided I didn’t want to feed this one to them. I’m considering making a large crockpot of Chicken Noodle Soup and freezing it in individual portions so that Caitlin can have them for school lunch. This would be more likely to save waste and be healthier. I love adding garlic and ginger to soup to boost our immune systems at this time of year.

This butter was a sad loss on for a couple of reasons. Firstly because I wasted it. Secondly because of why I wasted it. I was reaching for a bowl from a cupboard and became irritated at how tightly packed the dishes were on the shelf. Acting in grumpiness I didn’t concentrate enough as I pulled out the bowl and another bowl fell out too, landing on the counter where it bade farewell to its functional bowl form and splintered into several pieces. This stick of butter was on a plate under the cupboard and I was concerned about small ceramic shards being inside. So I dumped it into the compost.

Immediately I realised that I was in fact very grateful that I don’t have to empty the dishwasher very often anymore. There are more dishes than my dishwasher emptier (DWE)  likes to put away. They go into two different cupboards one at the DWE’s head height and one at shin height. I finally decided to stop fighting it and removed the dishes that are stored at shin height but often end up in the higher cupboard.

I’m giving it a trial run to see if the absence of these dishes makes any noticeable difference. If not they will be permanently removed and hopefully a greater simplicity will reign. I will then remove a bunch of mugs from the cupboard and see if this makes a noticeable impact on mug usage. The DWE believes there are too many mugs taking up valuable cupboard space but that is a larger kitchen control issue

Maybe the loss of 2/3 of a stick of butter is worth the resolve not to act in grumpiness, the reminder that I am grateful for the DWE’s work, and the decision to simplify our stuff :)

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