Food Waste Reduction Challenge – part II

So – what have we learned from the challenge so far?

Meal planning! So easy and such a great tool both in terms of food waste reduction, eating healthier, more organic, locally, more vegetarian/vegan…. Generally seeing the whole picture and getting an overview of our diet. And of course it’s a good tool when it comes to budgets and grocery shopping as well.

Composting. I know this challenge is about reducing food waste as much as possible. But I have to say, although I agree on keeping it to a minimum, I don’t feel all that bad about the food waste we give our rabbits or even what ends up in the compost pile. Because what ends up in both those places finally comes back as food on our table. That’s what it’s all about - keeping the energy in the system as much and as long as possible. And it does not contribute much to CO2 emissions or keeping people starving someplace in Africa.

What kind of food gets thrown out in our house? Mostly its stuff that comes in big jars or packs. And mostly it’s stuff bought on impulse (big lesson there. Meal plan!). Big jars of fancy sauces, olives, pickles, dressings and “economy”/budget size packets of cooked meats and sandwich spreads. No one seems to fancy the five olives left in a slightly murky jar in the back of the fridge. This can be changed of course – I could use the five olives when I make pasta sauce or something. It just *almost* never happens. Speaking of pasta; it’s another thing that gets thrown out now and then. Somehow we can never manage to cook the right amount of pasta – it’s too little or way too much. And the last thing is mostly bread and vegetable scraps. The rabbits eat most of it.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about is buying more locally produced food. With our climate this isn’t always easy, and definitely requires planning. We can produce quite a lot in this garden. Preserving; canning, drying, making jams etc. And storing; fresh potatoes, carrots, pumpkins etc. And there’s no problem getting local produce (or at least made in Norway) during the summer - buying in bulk and storing in a cold room in the basement. One of the most difficult things is fruits. We love fruit. And it’s so much better then feeding your child sweetened biscuits and candy. Locally produced fruit is difficult to find; it’s mostly apples and maybe some pears and berries. What to do if we’re going to stop buying bananas, oranges and grapes from faraway places? (Because we should – shouldn’t we really?)

I need sleep

I struggle with sleep these days. I guess it’s because of the pregnancy, feeling/being like a stranded whale and everything. So I go to bed, lie there staring at the ceiling for an hour and a half or so (or actually I stare at the walls – lying on my back is not an option now), listening to hubby and T. snoring, the dogs having a sip of water, raindrops and icicles falling from the roof outside now and then.

So I get up and settle down in my cosy chair in the living room. Still no energy to really do anything other then sitting still and being quiet. My brain and body craves rest. So I keep knitting on the diaper cover, I play Civilization on Xbox (you know; Waldorf inspired and natural family living mama as I am ;). I check my mail, facebook, and different forums. And I sit there in the darkness of my living room; me and the baby. She kicks me in the ribs, and I can feel little feet and hands trying to stretch and make more room in there. But there is no more room now. We’re both at our limits.

After a few hours I give the bed another try, and sometimes it works. If I can just manage to fall asleep it’s ok. Then I can sleep for many hours – too many. So I wake up as if I’ve slept for a hundred years like Cinderella. No prince kissing me though. The prince has gone with T. to the kindergarten – probably a few hours ago already. So the zombie like Cinderella gets up and feels just like she did when she went to sleep. And so it goes on.


But today I’m still hoping to;

Find the photos I took of T. playsilks. They turned out so vibrant and beautiful, and I was going to publish them here and write something more about toys and stuff. Maybe I need to take new ones.

Fold and put away a huge amount of baby clothes hanging to dry. My mother has bought a lot at flea markets and Goodwill, and I don’t really have any idea of what it all is yet.

Get some decluttering done and stop ignoring the stuff and build up of dishes in the kitchen.

Finish the meal plan for the next two weeks. (Write an update on the food waste reduction challenge maybe? Another thing being ignored these days. I’m really good at ignoring and postponing things – I should get a freakin’ medal.)

Today

I made brownie cupcakes. They didn’t turn out like they were supposed to, but still tasted great. And it was fast and easy. Hubby had to go to the neighbours to get some eggs (very pregnant woman craving brownies now), but they only had ducks eggs – maybe that had something to do with how the cupcakes turned out.

I’ve started another knitting project – a wool diaper soaker (pattern and yarn from Nøstebarn). It’s coming along pretty fast and easy – even for a novice like me.

I’ve bought some cute baby clothes at Goodwill.

I’m wondering about ordering some Ostheimer toys and other goodies for T. We have none, and I’ve been drooling around all kinds of Waldorf webshops for months now. Quite expensive though. But maybe I’m the one wanting them – not the four and a half year old… It's not too late to start a wooden toy collection at the age of 28, is it?

I’m really looking forward to getting our office ready in the basement. Right now our living room is stashed full of computers, cables, monitors and AV equipment…

I’m in love with this one – and feeling kind of sentimental because soon, very soon she will have a baby sister and our family enters a new era. Three becomes four and everything changes.

Snow

Pretty pretty...


But maybe enough of it now...?

Food Waste Reduction Challenge – part I

We’re on. One month of food waste reduction.

This whole challenge made me think about food in many ways, not just about how to waste less, but also about how it’s made, where it comes from, who gets paid for it, where it travels, the footprint it makes, where it ends up and many other things.

Crunchy has a few good tips on how to start off – I’m getting to that. Our fridge seriously needs to get cleaned out and I bet I’ll find remnants from Christmas and other stuff in there that will probably walk out by its own soon.

Today I have made a two week meal plan for the first time in my life. Based on what’s in the fridge and freezer at the moment. To me this challenge is not only about food waste reduction, but also about saving money, eating healthier and more locally produced/organic/environmentally friendly. A meal plan is an obvious step in the right direction. We also went grocery shopping and bought a lot less than usually because of the meal plan. Yey! We still have a lot of potential when it comes to grocery shopping though. Too much stuff that is unnecessary and unhealthy gets in to this house.

Since food waste is the main theme in this challenge, I’m going to start composting again. As of tomorrow the compost bucket is going back in. I had a compost pile in the garden last summer, but this winter most of our food waste goes straight in with miscellaneous garbage. And we even have rabbits…. SO – Two boxes/buckets are going up on the wall in the stairway down to our basement. One for rabbit food and one for food waste/compost. So at lest it is used in a much better way than just throwing it in plastic bags and waiting for the garbage truck to transport it someplace else…