Over the past year or so, I’ve grown increasingly interested in trying to reduce the amount of edible items that my household throws out. I think this fascination really began when we experimented with getting CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) boxes from a local farm. When you’re getting fresh local produce in its whole form (most notably root vegetables with the tops still attached), you feel stupid for throwing out all the green stuff. Or at least, I do. Add to that my recent acquisition of a juicer. The juicer makes very nice juice, but throwing away all the pulp (read: all that food!) that gets produced in the process hurts a little bit. So it seems that I am ready to embark on a food waste-reduction journey. To make it more official, I’m documenting it on the blog.

So far, it appears to me that there are two components to reducing food waste. One is to plan and think ahead, so as to be aware of the food items that need to be used before they expire. The other is to try to use parts of produce and animals that are usually thrown out.

I think this will be a great creative challenge to my cooking habits, and I’ll try to document my products and progress over the coming weeks.