Bread, Thanksgiving, and Waste
This Thanksgiving I’ve been thinking a lot about bread! Not sure why; perhaps because 10% of the world doesn’t even have a loaf tonight and much less a turkey. Or because we waste about 20% of all bread at home. Or because I bought two bags of stuffing and then figured out I had frozen leftover bread which I could’ve seasoned and re-baked into stuffing...Mea Culpa: Isn’t that one of our main problems… We buy stuff we don’t need; we buy just because we can, because we don’t think of and appreciate what we already have even though it costs us.
About 40% of all food in America is wasted…so here are a few tips when planning Thanksgiving and realistically any other meal at home; it will save you money and reduce the impact on our environment.
1. Never go to the supermarket hungry; you will buy more than you need.
2. Make a list but check what you already have at home.
3. Plan for leftovers; turkey makes a great stock or soup in the slow cooker and cranberry sauce on pancakes, with smoothies, or in a vodka cocktail!!! My favorite! So well deserved!!
4. Don’t buy single use paper and plastic plates. Have a raffle, make cleaning up fun!
5. Try the GUEST-IMATOR dinner party calculator at savethefood.com to estimate how much food you will need.
6. Share and be Thankful!
PS: How much bread do you throw out? Have you ever even tried to estimate it? I have not, but it certainly will be an exercise I will attempt and share at another time. According to savethefood.com a typical family of four in America loses about $1,500 a year on wasted food.
