Sunday, October 12, 2008

Preppin' 101: Food Conservation

Food costs have risen dramatically recently. The most disturbing fact is that the amount of wasted food has also skyrocketed to astronomical proportions. You can increase your long term food supplies by following a few simple steps that won’t cost you any money. This will be especially useful during tough economic times when saving money will be essential to the survival of you and your family. Eliminating wasteful habits and practices will allow you to conserve food supplies without additional cost.


In a University of Arizona Study it was found that Half the American Harvest Goes to Waste.

Here are a couple of excerpts from that study:

“TUCSON, Arizona, November 23, 2004 (ENS) - When University of Arizona anthropologist Dr. Timothy W. Jones sits down to his Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, he is not likely to put more on his plate than he can eat. Jones has spent the last 10 years measuring food loss, in the farms and orchards, warehouses, retail stores and dining rooms of America and he knows how much of the U.S. harvest goes to waste - nearly 50 percent.”

“They found that, on average, a family discards 1.28 pounds of food a day, about 470 pounds per household per year, or 14 percent of all food brought into the house.”

Simple Food Conservation Tips

1.) Check your expiration dates carefully. Don’t throw food away simply because you think it’s bad. Many people unknowingly throw good food away by failing to do this simple step.

2.) Don’t cook for an army if there are only two of you eating! Many leftovers get thrown out instead of being eaten simply because there was “too much” food left over from the original meal.

3.) Rotate! Rotate! Rotate! Always spend the necessary time to properly rotate your food stores. Don’t let it go bad sitting on the shelf.

4.) Don’t practice “new recipes” on family and friends. This can be a disastrous waste of food if your “new recipe” is a failure.

5.) Carefully plan your meals so as not to have excessive amounts of leftovers.

6.) Create and use a specific list of needed food items when shopping. Don’t purchase items that you may not need and ultimately may go to waste.

7.) Know the tastes of your meal time guests. A dish containing a specific herb or seasoning will go to waste if your family or guests don’t have a taste for it.

8.) Remember, TASTE DOES MATTER! Always try to prepare meals that not only are good for you but that taste good too. Sometimes simple fare is better than trying to be a gourmet cook, even though we all wish we could be the world’s best chef.

9.) Clearly label all leftovers with the date and contents.

10.) If you know you have too much in the way of leftovers to consume the next day or two – freeze it for later use!

Staying above the water line!

Riverwalker

9 comments:

WrethaOffGrid said...

You hit the hammer directly on the head, again! Your messages have been right on, especially the last 3, thanks for your good work. :)

Wretha

The Scavenger said...

Great Post, We are as guilty as any when it comes to wasting food. We over cook and those leftovers keep coming back at you for days. We just get tired of them and the next thing you know they have been in the fridge just a little too long. Great information. Thanks and keep up the good work.

Chris

Marie said...

It's too bad that much food is being wasted in this country, especially when other countries have so little. I am really picky about expiration dates, so I have to be especially careful about food rotation. Thanks for the great info!

Grumpyunk said...

If you do have waste, feed it to your Chickens, Pigs, Etc.

riverwalker said...

Thanks everybody for all the great comments. I too am guilty sometimes of wasting food but fortunately my protection team isn't picky about leftovers. Even if we only reduce our waste by
50%,that's a really big savings.

RW

Anonymous said...

When I was in a work camp for the US Forest Service we had about 75 people living there. One day during supper I sat by the garbage cans and collected all the food people were throwing out at the end of their meals.

75 people produced 3 full garbage bags of perfectly edible food thrown out. Whole steaks, apples, half pints of milk, vegetables. It was enough to easily feed another 25 or 30 people.

Such as waste of land resources!

gott_cha said...

Yep,...I guess we all waste more than we should......and not just food either.

Anonymous said...

I can see not cooking extra if you don't have a freezer. But I do, and deliberately cook huge amounts of food, repackage in portion sizes, and freeze until needed. A couple of minutes in the microwave and it's done. It works well, especially for those dishes that require a lot of prep work and/or cooking time. None of the food is wasted, and I can decide on portion size ahead of time (no overeating).

riverwalker said...

To: anonymous

Agree with your cooking extra and freezing it. Do that myself. Just make sure you have room in the freezer! Thanks for the great tip!

RW

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