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If you receive the Food and Nutrition Magazine, you know that this year marked the start of a new segment at the back of the magazine catering to food waste. There have been some interesting articles about composting, aquafabe, and using fruits and vegetables that have passed their prime.
While we may think of some of these topics as “domestic interests” pertaining mostly to home kitchens, dietitians should be equipped to answer questions – or at least refer resources – to patients, clients, and friends. Today, my RD tip for you is about Five Kitchen resources to reuse to save resources AND money.
Freezer bags
I thought my family was the only one who washes and reuses plastic bags. I was so happy when I saw that Stephanie from Six Figures Under does it too! She is full of frugal tips, and thanks to their frugality her family just paid off a mountain of student debt!
Some bags, like sandwich or snack bags, are too flimsy to reuse. Freezer bags, on the other hand, are much hardier and can be used several times. I typically use new ones if I am actually freezing something, and once a bag has a hole in it I toss it.
Much of the time we use an already-used quart freezer bag instead of snack or sandwich bags. Yes, it is larger than necessary, but we can reuse it again (and have already gotten at least one other use out of it). Another great alternative for snacks is the Itzy Ritzy Snack Happens bags.
Food
Don’t laugh at me for this. It is obviously something we want to reuse to save resources and money. There are a few ways to “reuse” food, probably more than I will mention here.
Leftovers
Eat leftovers within a few days, or freeze them for a later date. I recently discovered that this is the key to much of my food waste. I think people will eat things, but before I know it a week and a half has passed and we are growing a wild strain of penicillin. My new mantra is EAT IT OR FREEZE IT, within two days.
Leftovers can also be upcylced. Leftover brown rice becomes vegetable fried rice. Chilli becomes burritos. You know this, I know you do.
Composting
One of my goals when we purchase a home is to start composting “for real,” meaning give it some TLC and water/turn it every once in a while. Right now we basically have a garbage heap, which is good, but could be better.
Composting cuts down on the amount of trash you send to the dump and the number of trash bags you buy/use in a month, which saves you some $$.
Feed Something
Along with composting, my home owner goals include raising chickens. Now, I wouldn’t just go feeding them anything, but I have heard quite a few chicken people (chicken owners? chickeneers?) talk about feeding scraps to their chickens. Goats are also appreciative of kitchen refuse, especially corn cobs.
Dish Towels
What on earth do you do with those ratty old dish towels that are no longer fit to be seen? You fold them up under your sink and use them the next time your dish washing gets carried away (right onto the floor). Depending on your dish washing skills, this could save you big money on paper towels, and also cuts back on your trash. I personally tend to splash generously (by accident of course), so paper towels could really add up.
Grocery Bags
Call me strange (you probably already do), but I have always thought of trash bags – like bags intentionally created for holding trash – as a “rich person” thing. We have always used plastic grocery bags to line our trash cans. Of course this limits you to a Target bag-sized trash can, but for most of your house that is okay. You might want a larger one for the kitchen, depending on how often you like to take out the trash.
Of course now we have the reusable bags that cut down on how many “free trash bags” we get from the store. But I do occasionally forget the reusable ones, and our supply of plastic grocery bags has yet to run out.
Water
I’m kind of a nut about this one. Between living in California and growing up in Colorado, a person gets stuck in permanent drought mode. When I wash my lettuce and other vegetables for the week, I can’t help but feel bad watching all that water swirl down the drain. As a result I have come up with a number of clever (read: slightly weird) ways to save/reuse at least some of the water we use. You can look forward to hearing about that Soon!
What do you do to save resources and money?
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