Frugal Friday
Reducing Food Waste Edition
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Who all wastes more food than they want too? I know I do, and I really have no excuse. I mean, nothing ever really truly goes to waste around here as I have pigs half the year and chickens year round, yet more often than not I find myself engaging in a bout of mental chastising as I find that I am yet again pitching or not using something that I intended too.
I hate waste. I hate seeing it on the side of the road. I hate seeing it in the landfills, I even hate it when my steer drops a big steaming pile of it onto my boot. Okay, I just fibbed there, I love steer manure and so does my garden. I think my hatred for waste comes from spending quite a bit of time with grandparents and great grandparents who grew up and lived during the Depression. My great grandma was so extreme in the reuse department that she washed and saved Styrofoam meat trays. Eek! I haven't gone that far...yet. Well, I guess I have, almost all of my meat is produced on farm, so it's wrapped in butcher paper. Hmm...
My one great failing in waste world is my refrigerator leftovers and by-product usage. Take today for instance, I am busy whipping up Christmas presents and products for my Etsy store. That means I am in the full throes of bath and body product production mania. My Tub Tea that I make for those who I love contains homemade colloidal oatmeal. All that means is that I grind and sift whole rolled oats like a maniac, over and over again until their little molecules are suspended in a nice way that makes for a dang fine tub tea additive. Hello silky skin!
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Anyhoo, part of the oat grinding and sifting process is having a bit of oat bits left over after each subsequent sifting, and as I hate waste, I have been saving the oat bits in a bag. My first thought was that my girls, the five Americauna hens I keep for eggs, would love to nosh on those oat bits. That sentiment though, seemed to be the easy way out, and really, there was really nothing wrong with the oat bits, so I challenged my overwrought brain to another way to use them.
Why not throw them into some cookies, thought I? The heathens around my neighborhood are always dropping by for a snack. I mean, how excellent would it be if I were to feed them some snacks composed in part from a byproduct of creating another product. Hello Frugal Muse, I see you there.
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So, I grabbed some butter out of the fridge and plopped it onto the counter to soften. I know there are so many folks out there with allergies and health issues, I am one of them, but honestly, when it comes to keeping the local adolescent livestock fed, I focus more of quality and quantity, for I'd go beyond broke if I had to feed dairy free, gluten free, vegan, only NW sourced snacks to a half a dozen seagulls. Let's just say I do what I can to do my bit for all the almost right reasons.
The resulting chocolate chip oatmeal cookie bars were declared "Goomdfd." I assume this muffled grunt meant that the cookie bars were rather tasty, and the goomdfd sound was uttered a few more times by a few more people as they mowed through the oat bars like preschoolers through a box of fruit snacks. I don't think it's premature at all to say Mission Accomplished although I won't jump the gun and get a banner printed. Ooh, I like banners!
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This whole Frugal Friday thing got me to thinking that I know all sorts of super excellent people on this platform, smart and resourceful folk whose brains I would love to pick in this area of using by products or-wasting less in the food or any life department really. Let me have it my friends, what are some of your favorite frugal waste reduction tips?
My parents were young people just getting started out in life during the Great Depression, so I, too, grew up with frequent admonitions about not being wasteful. My dad used to eat peculiar combinations of food from fridge and cupboard, often just to use something up before it went bad, including things that probably ought to have made him sick, but I guess he had an iron stomach. I miss having chickens to toss the scraps to, and to clean up the odds and ends from the fridge from time to time. I haven't jumped on the stainless steel straw bandwagon yet, but I do wash and re-use my plastic straws several times. Lightly-used napkins or paper towels go into a box under the sink for wiping up spills on the floor. When I was much younger, and all the girls had to wear dresses to school, we would make our nylon pantihose last longer by cutting off one leg when it got too damaged, and wearing two half-pairs at the same time. I rarely wear pantihose anymore, so I don't worry about making them last forever. I suppose there are other frugal things I do without even thinking about them.
Ooh, so many good things in your reply to ponder! I too wash and reuse straws, and your comment about your dad eating odd food combos reminded me of the time we cleaned out my great grandma's canned goods and my Papa ate some bear mincemeat that was canned in 1979...It was like 2013 when this happened. LOL!
I've heard stories of how awesome and yet horrible pantyhose are. Kinda glad I grew up when they weren't fashionable. Mine would have had holes in them anyway.
You are a super frugalista for sure, I will note all your waste not want not excellence for future employment in Kat life.
I could write several paragraphs about my parents' thrifty practices in assorted areas of life. They saved every but of string that entered the house (People used it when mailing packages back then), used the same tinsel year after year on the Christmas tree, and we always carefully removed wrapping paper so it could be folded and used again for many years. It was sturdier back then. We re-used ribbon and bows year after year. (I still do.) Mama cut up blank-backed junk mail to use for scratch paper ( I still do that, too.) Other things will undoubtedly pop into my mind as time passes.
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