Food waste at home

One of the hardest places to reduce food waste is in our homes. Life is hectic. We know eating out isn’t that healthy. We have every intention of eating right, but often times that beautiful healthy food just rots in the fridge until we finally throw it out and buy a new stuff to start spoiling. It’s an expensive habit that only feeds microbes.
While making a salad, I was digging through the fridge and came across this unappealing cucumber. We’ve been trained to not think twice and just toss it (ideally in the compost, but all too often in the garbage). Granted, that was my first thought…but then a little voice – that of my poor southern Italian ancestry – gave me a brilliant idea. An idea so simple that not even Billy Mays could sell a gadget to do it: cut off the bad part and eat the rest. As silly as it sounds, this is a profound lesson that we do not remember in a world of cheap ubiquitous food and hyper-cautious food safety ideas.

15 seconds later I’d sliced off the moldy face and a couple soft spots. What I was left with was a crisp, delicious cucumber for my salad. So the next time you clean out the fridge, consider whether you can save any part of that spoiling food. Be safe, but don’t be too cautious. There’s great food lurking just under that top layer of mold.