Tuesday, January 13, 2015

What A Waste

Food Waste.....

We typically eat all the leftovers....finish the milk before it expires.....that sort of thing.

Grapes...for whatever reason, the last few grapes never get eaten before they shrivel up. 

But in the last month or so, our food waste has been extreme.  Not happy.  Not happy at all.  We can divide the waste into 3 categories:  Didn't eat/use, Appliance Error, and *sigh*  Learning Experience.


Didn't Eat/Use

This is self-explanatory.  This is by far our smallest category.  Despite saying we finish the milk before it expires just a few lines ago....I did spill out at least 1/3 of a gallon last week.  But that was the only thing in this category last week.  And in fact...possibly in the past several weeks.  I clean out the fridge on Thursday night (Trash pick up is Friday), and there has been very little I had to clear.

However, Sassy has gotten into a bad habit of throwing away food because she simply doesn't want it.  She eats 1/2 a cup of yogurt, and tosses the rest.  Or yesterday...when they were home from school...she ate the lunch that she had packed for school.  She ate all the "snacks" in there (and she packed her own lunch.....), but didn't want her sandwich.  So she just threw the whole sandwich away.  (The answer I got when I asked her why there was a whole, uneaten sandwich in the trash was:  it isn't a big deal because it will decompose and return to the Earth.  Apparently a lesson on "landfills" is in order, in addition to "waste of food and money.")


Appliance Error

Most specifically....Refrigerator error.  The fridge has started to freeze things in the crisper drawer (no control on the drawer...just the general control for the entire unit, and it is on the 2nd warmest setting).  The fridge is 23 years old, and as a whole...works just fine.  But whatever regulates this drawer isn't working properly.  I bought a bulb of fennel....went to use it and it had totally frozen solid.  As did my mushrooms.  My lemons were ok though.  I let the fennel thaw a bit, but it was a gonner.  It was just a pile of mush.  Rest in peace, fennel.


Learning Experience

This by far has been the the hardest hit category.  It is a combination of the kids and I having to come to terms with factors such as new things, responsibility, and plain ole on-the-job training.

With G-man gone....I have been forced to do a better job with meal planning (which I still hate).  As the only adult, I am the only one who can go to the store, drive kids to appointments, etc.  I try and schedule things for after school, to limit missed time at school and work.  Additionally, the kids are home on vacation days, snow days (or rain days as it turned out yesterday....ridiculous).  I have to make sure there is food that they can easily make or heat.

My learning experience....as much as I need them to be a few steps further down the learning continuum, they just aren't there.  And despite explaining things, having them tell it back to me, and writing them notes....sometimes they just don't know enough to complete the task.

Case in point....the pot of meatballs.  I prepped a big pot of meatballs and sauce.  The plan was to have them for dinner over pasta, meatball subs the next night, and freeze the remainder for another meal.  I went over everything with the kids....what time to turn on the stove and what "number" to put the dial on.  That it should simmer (little bubbles....not alot of them....if there are alot of bubbles or big bubbles, turn the number down....).  I got home, and was greeted to a smoke filled home (no fire or anything like that).  But a pot that was SCORCHED.  Like 4 inches of burnt, charcoal-esque sauce and meat.  

Somewhere along the line of instructions....the "turn off stove" was missed.  Additionally, the definition of "little bubbles" was also not the same between kids and Mom.  They boiled away all the liquid, burnt the entire pot of food, and almost ruined my pot (it took me 3 days to clean it out).  So we threw out 3 dinners worth of food....valued at about $20-$25 for all ingredients.  OK...so that task was beyond their capability....lesson learned.

But along the "responsibility" line of thought....that is totally on the kids.  We have had several accidents because they aren't paying attention to what they are doing.  The biggest one....my now shattered Pyrex dish.  I made 2 stromboli (one for dinner...one for kids to eat during vacation week).  They pulled it out of the fridge, and then changed their mind.  Instead of putting it back where they found it, they just shoved it in.  The next time they opened the door...it came tumbling out.  Shattered into 7,000 pieces.  Sassy got a very minor knick from cleaning up the glass (and on top of that...she didn't wash it out, or put a bandaid on it.....sigh), but both kids were largely ok.  They did a decent job of cleaning up the mess....and by how far away from the fridge I still found chunks of glass....it had to have been a MESS.    But obviously, that food got tossed as well, along with my broken dish.  

Conclusion

I am conservatively estimating that the food waste total for the past 6 weeks is about $100 for everything (there is more than what I mentioned here).  Not good.  Not good at all.  So....Sassy will make a better effort to not just toss whatever in the trash....I am not putting stuff in the crisper drawer.....and I have scaled back on what I have asked the kids to do unsupervised.    Let's hope the coming 6 weeks goes better.....


15 comments:

  1. My boys are a lot older than your kids and I thought it was because they are boys - but no, it's because my kids and your kids are KIDS. Sounds like stuff that would go on at my house. I'm still afraid to let them cook when I am not home. And some of them are... a lot older than your kids. YIKES

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    1. Well...I am glad it isn't just MY kids. Lol

      I have been trying to let them help more when I am home. They need to learn....but wow the learning curve is rough!

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  2. Ugh! Nothing worse than having to throw away perfectly good food. If it's any consolation, my DH wouldn't have done any better with the meatballs (hence, I started putting them in the crockpot when I wasn't there to watch them!) Hang in there - single parenting is tough.

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    1. Oh the crock pot! I did make meatballs in the crock pot after the disaster. I over filled it (that is on me)...and stuff ended up spilling over the sides....what a mess.

      I am actually a good cook...but this is not coming off that way! Lol

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  3. I found both of mine when younger did the same thing. My daughter is going to culinary school so no problem there but my 17 year old son will sometimes forget things. My dh thinks if you turn a pot on high it will cook faster but forget to check on it. I feel for the sauce and meatballs, once it scorches at the bottom, it is gone. Cheryl

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    1. You guys are making me feel so much better! At what point does this get better????

      I should post a pic of my poor pot after Meatball Disaster. There wasn't an OUNCE of liquid left in that pot.

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  4. My mum died when I was about eleven and a half and although I wasn't the oldest, I was the oldest in primary school so I often had to take care of things when we got home from school and babysit the younger two until my 13-year-old sister got home. My dad used to come home briefly when we got in to make sure we got dinner and then I'd sometimes just get instructions on what she would get when she got home an hour later. (My oldest sister, 22 at the time, used to bulk cook at the weekends and I used to do the shopping with her - I have to add that I enjoyed that time and absolutely LOVED being "the housewife" LOL). My two worst disasters were remarkably like the above. I didn't turn the heat off under the stew after heating it for my sister and it totally dried out and burnt the pot. And, famously, one time (actually I think this was even after my dad had remarried a year later) I was supposed to boil a big pot of eggs to use for egg salad later. I only really knew how to do eggs the way I liked them (soft) though, so I wasn't sure how long they had to stay in the pot for. Yet another all the water boiled away burnt pot experience. I'll never forget the stink of that one!

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    1. I am sure it was alot of responsibility for you at such a young age!

      Some of this just has to be the age...their brain is still in development. I look forward to putting some of this behind us...as does my checkbook!

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  5. It is really hard to just cook for yourself and the kids. With dad gone I would revert to cereal and what they want, but I am a lazy daisy at times.......

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    1. Sassy will eat cereal, but not Bossy. If I just fed them what they "want", they would live on pizza rolls, bagel bites, and chicken nuggets. I try and keep those in moderation.

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  6. I forgot a pot of hard boiled eggs were on once... All the sudden I hear what sounded like gunshots in the kitchen as they exploded and egg shards were everywhere...ceiling, floors, on the cat...totally stinky but kind of funny.

    You might try one of those once a month cooking books and put everything in individual servings. Meal planning and prep all together and the kids then can just microwave portions of whatever...., and you only have to think about the meals once a week to pull them out. They have ideas for even small freezers in some of the books.

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    1. Oh my!

      I love bulk cooking, but a) because we have no idea when we are moving, I am trying to limit what I do, and b) I have SUPER picky kids!

      I am having them help me more in the prep of things, so they are more likely to eat it because they made it. As for the cost...I may try having Sassy cost things out....that is beyond Bossy's understanding. In his mind, a car and a pack of gum cost the same thing.

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    2. That is funny. The cat was probably traumatized for life. Lol.

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  7. Sorry for second post...one of the ideas we have been tossing around to teach the kids food cost is having them make a days menu, go to the store and buy the ingredients and cook it with us so they understand the whole picture. Not sure it will work as we haven't tried it yet!

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  8. I work with developmentally disabled adults. Years ago when I worked in a supported independent living home, we would batch cook for this one man. We would show him how to reheat the meals in the microwave. Apparently a staff told him to reheat something for 2 minutes. Well...that number stuck in his head and he would reheat things for 2 minutes regardless of what it was. As he did not have staffing in the evenings or on weekends, I still cringe thinking about him eating half frozen meals. No amount of teaching or reminding could get him to heat things longer than 2 minutes. Oy vey!! :)

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