Chicago Bankruptcy Lawyer Blog

I love that line, from Mary Poppins, in case you didn’t recognize it. Most people are more familiar with the old adage, “waste not, want not.” It’s a simple concept, if you don’t waste your food, you’ll never go hungry. Unfortunately, statistics prove that Americans continue to waste food in astronomical proportions… not quite as much as our British or French counterparts, but still way more than necessary. The United Nation’s World Food Program estimates that the whole of Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo could be fed daily with the leftovers of France and Italy. Wow.

Feeding the world’s hungry with your leftover food… that’s a noble cause if ever there was one. But, closer in, how much money are you wasting every time you throw away those soft potatoes you left in the crisper drawer too long, that extra gallon of milk you didn’t use as you thought you would, the white rice that you made too much of with dinner last night? That waste adds up.

And every bit of food that you threw out is like money that you’ve thrown down the drain. Although there are conflicting reports, one study by the USDA says that 25% of food is thrown in the trash, and another by the University of Arizona claims it’s as high as 50%; it’s still a ridiculous and shameful number. If the USDA figures are right, and you waste 25% of your food, then your food budget is 25% higher than you think it is.

I was guilty of such wasteful habits, but our living in a third world country – Ghana, West Africa -- has revised my thinking. Food is so much more precious here, in terms of its availability and cost. We’re fortunate; we can afford a variety of foods inaccessible to the average Ghanaian, and have the option to shop either from the local food markets, or the newfangled supermarkets. Supermarket shopping is a new concept here, but unlike the U.S., our average shopping center only stocks about 4,000 products; the average American supermarket stocks 40,000 products.

The cost of some goods here is a major consideration. If you toss out a gallon of milk in N.J. because it’s past its expiry date, you’ve only lost about $4. If you toss out a gallon of spoiled milk here in Ghana, you’ve thrown out more than $11. The price of "convenience" foods that you're accustomed to in the states, is ridiculously overpriced here... a box of 10 taco shells for $10, a can of Campbell's tomato soup for $1.90, 8 flour tortillas for $8 -- it's just flour, water, oil and baking powder, for goodness sakes! Waste any of those? I don’t think so.

So, how do we do it? Almost nothing goes to waste. Milk is frozen, if it appears we won’t finish it up in time. So are overripe fruits, to be added to yogurt or for making quick breads. Chicken parts -- skin, bones, fat, tendons, whatever parts we don’t eat -- go into a stock pot or are boiled up for the dog’s food. Same goes for fresh fish. Potatoes or carrots that went soft in the fridge get peeled and cut up and put into ice water to “perk” them back up, then cooked. Leftover rice is turned into fried rice the next day. Leftover pasta is turned into pasta salad. The heels and ends of bread are kept in the freezer until we’ve got a big batch, and then we turn them into croutons or bread crumbs; when I use the bread crumbs for coating fried food, I keep the leftovers in the freezer for the next time I’m breading chicken or fish, just separate from the fresh crumbs. Leftover pickle juice is boiled with cut-up cucumbers for new pickles. Fresh herbs, even the parsley stalks I didn’t use the first time, are frozen and added to stews. Even the waxy bits of cheese are saved; they can be grated into the homemade spaghetti sauce I make every other week, from the tomatoes that get too mushy to eat raw.

If we’ve bought something that the kids don’t like after they’ve tried it, we give it away. There’s always someone who would appreciate it, and often they’re thrilled with the opportunity to try something new and different. The truth is we’re embarrassed to throw away perfectly good and still edible food. One day, we were tossing out the heads and husks of about 10 lbs worth of fresh shrimp that we had bought (shrimp is blessedly "cheap" here, the whole batch cost us about $10). The garbage man had come to the gate to collect our trash, and we ran in the house to bring out the bag of shrimp remnants… he took one look in the bag, and asked us, incredulously, “Are you throwing this away? Can I have it?” Please, with our blessings. You see, here in Ghana, those shrimp bits could be dried and powdered, and added to fish soups and stews. Waste not, want not.


-- Debt Diva for DebtStoppers