Reflection on Zero Food Waste Challenge

I made some clean-out-the-fridge soup today (turkey stock from a slow cooked turkey leg, some old potatoes and cabbage along with a carrot and onion, a stick of celery and some scotch both dried mix, split peas and black eyed beans) and it got me thinking about last November's zero food waste challenge. Has it changed my behaviour in any way?

Before the challenge, I didn't think I wasted food. I wash out sauce bottles and use in casseroles, soups and stirfries, the same with the dregs of mustard, oil from sun-dried tomatoes, chutneys etc. I often use veg, and fruit like pears, apples and peaches, without peeling, and I already saved citrus peels for making marmalade. I often boiled chicken bones to make stock for soup. I composted fruit and veg waste. To be honest, I didn't think I had a lot to learn.

However, while I did these things, I didn't always do them consistently. I didn't make vegetable stock, because I didn't always have an immediate use for it. It had never occurred to me to freeze the peelings, a tip I got from someone the FareShare Facebook group that was set up for the challenge. And if I could freeze peelings, I could also freeze bones. Another hot tip was to simmer the peelings or bones in the slow cooker overnight, rather than pressure cooking for half an hour as I used to, produced a much richer stock. Especially if the onion and garlic peelings had been roasted first in a foil tray in the bottom of the oven while I was cooking something else in there. Those same onion and garlic peelings, I was informed (again from someone on the Facebook group), could be ground up and mixed with salt to make a seasoning/garnish.

Some things I had previously thought to be inedible could, I found, be eaten, although some require additional processing. I had always considered sweet potato peelings and pumpkin peel too tough or fibrous to eat but, blended in a soup or roasted, they were not only edible but very tasty. Unpeeled mango could be blended into a smoothie (although it was, shall we say, very full bodied) Banana peel, I was told, could be used in banana cakes and muffins in addition to the banana fruit itself. I haven't yet tried this, although I don't doubt it, and I did try the banana peel "fake bacon", out of curiosity. It was quite tasty, but not good enough, in my opinion, to justify the processing time. Although I would consider it if I was hosting a vegan.

Used coffee grounds were a particular interest of mine, as I drink a lot of coffee. The garden and the compost bin benefit from these (coffee grounds are great for keeping the slugs off your hostas) but after a bit of googling, I discovered coffee grounds have a fair few nutrients, and I was sure there must be ways they could be incorporated into my diet. The coffee grounds bread I made was fine as bread, but disappointingly (and perhaps as expected) didn't have any discernable coffee taste. The chocolate brownies, on the other hand, with coffee grounds incorporated, were delicious, and had a bit more texture than normal. I can't justify making brownies on an industrial scale, though, which I would need to do just to help deal with my used coffee grounds mountain, but it is good to know that you can make your brownie mix go further (as brownies are very much a luxury food) and add extra nutrients, by incorporating 80-100g of used coffee grounds in the mixture.

There was a lot of citrus peel, and most of this found its way into different flavours of marmalade which lots of people were gifted for Christmas. Some citrus peel was candies and went into Christmas baking, and some went into some cookies. A few squeezed lemons were mixed with salt to make preserved lemons, but I haven't used any of them yet.

Another benefit of the Zero food waste challenge was the opportunity to use up foods that had been lingering in the pantry and the freezer. Freezer burned bread rolls were crumbed and included in meatloaf. Tinned mango pulp and trifle sponges became an unusual trifle. Tail ends of bags of dried fruit were incorporated into Christmas puddings and Christmas cake.

There were some failures. Excess mint cuttings from a bag of fresh herbs rooted in a jar on the kitchen windowsill, then promptly died. The tepache made from pineapple peel didn't ferment. Both of these I think were due to the cold weather, as I've been successful with both in the summer. My experiment with citrus infused sugar just turned into a soggy mess, but they were used to make some interesting cookies.

So, in summary, I think the primary lessons from this challenge were (1) that I should always think about whether food waste I would ordinarily have thrown out could be used in some other way, and (2) that planning is essential. Planning meals for the week before putting my shopping list together helps reduce waste, both by stopping me buy excess food, and taking into account what is already in the cuoboard/fridge/freezer that needs using up. Planning also enables bulk buying and bulk cooking so extra portions can be frozen/refrigerated for future meals. Finally, planning is also needed to think about when and how stock needs to be prepared from peelings and bones, and how any unexpected leftovers can be used up.

All in all, the challenge was a thought-provoking exercise, some things were definitely worthwhile, and I will be continuing with them. I also have to thank my long suffering husband for putting up with some of the weirder offerings (I'm thinking "chewy" smoothies containing unpeeled mango and, of course, the banana peel bacon) as part of the process!