This week’s roundup has a tips on preserving food (including using etheylene absorbers to prolong the shelf life of produce) and reducing waste (including an article on reducing Thanksgiving waste – timely, if you happen to be Canadian), as well as a couple of articles about the issue of food waste.
Tips for preserving food and reducing waste
How to Absorb Ethylene Gas | eHow.com
Budget Tip: How To Vacuum Seal Food Without a Vacuum Sealing Machine | The Kitchn
Save Your Food: Canning and Freezing 101 – Earth911.com
Cooked Apple Recipes Great for Fall, Baked Apples, Apple Crisp and More – AARP
7 ways to reduce household food waste – News – MSN CA
Tips from the pros on cutting Thanksgiving waste – The Globe and Mail
More on food waste
UN Says Europe Wastes 50% Of Fruit And Vegetables — And America Isn’t Much Better – Forbes
222 million tons 
Love all the resources! I’m making a commitment to photograph all my food waste each month and translate it into money that I am literally throwing away. Hopefully that will keep me accountable and inspire me to quit wasting anything!
Good resolution. You might want to take a look at the frugal girl blog for inspiration – she’s been doing a “food waste friday” weekly since 2008 (ref: http://goo.gl/ev2vl).
Great links and tips. I’m not sure how effective the straw one might be but as we have straws and plastic bags I will give it a go. I already do some canning but that particular site increased my knowledge, so thank you. And Kate’s idea is very good, but in our area we only have a rubbish pick up once every two weeks (and it is only a single bin), with food waste pick up weekly, but in a tiny little box. Both local government changes have already made a difference in our house, even though I thought we did quite well compared to most people. Sites like yours give us ideas to push that even more so thanks for the links and articles that you yourself write
Not sue about the straw one either, but I don’t have a fancy vacuum packing machine, so worth a shot. A lot of people mention another approach in the comments: submerging the baggie in water (with top open and above water) to push the air out. Like Kate’s idea too – always good to do things to keep yourself honest.
Glad you’re finding the links useful.
Excellent and helpful! Keep up the great work!
Thanks, Jennifer!
Of course I had to think of you and your wonderful mission when I made an excessive amount of food two days in a row this weekend–but I have a university-aged male and I packed up copious amounts of leftovers in freezable containers and shipped him back to the U., where he will have little cooking to do for the forseeable future. I will make use of your food-preserving tips, for sure.
University aged males make waste almost impossible – I vaguely remember being able to sit down to a meal minutes after having eaten the last one. Maybe people should just post their leftovers on Facebook or Twitter, with an appropriate hashtag that sends an alert to any and all hungry students within a mile.
Ha! That should work. Just delivered 2 shopping bags of frozen leftovers today–and visited Costco with the same hungry student.
LOL on posting on FB and Twitter. You may be onto something…
Not just starving males. There were veritable years that I ate only from the 5 major college food groups: ramen noodles, eggs or hot dogs, bananas and celery, beer, and coffee. The only good meal I ever got was once a week when I crashed my dad’s house…and I rarely missed it.
Ooo…a sachet to absorb ethylene gas. Cool! I wonder how well they work. Best thing we did for food storage (in the fridge) is pull out all of the drawers. Our fridge these days is 80% produce, so they are stored in individual containers instead. This seriously cut down on spoilage.
On that Forbes article, that’s why we prefer to pick it directly from the plant. We know it’s ready to eat and there’s way less waste in fuel costs, damage in shipping, and spoilage at the grocery (and they still throw out a LOT of perfectly good food that they can’t sell).
Thanks for sharing the links. Great articles. Keep up the sharing, please!
We got a couple of sachets, and they seem to be effective – good thing given the Thanksgiving bounty. Glad you’re liking the articles; sharing these is one thing I can do when I’m on the road, and away from the kitchen – that, and stories about monkeys. :)
Please, for me, do more monkey stories. You make me long for SE Asia, the culture, and the FOOD. I can actually taste murtabak when I think of it…
Hey…I could use some more okara recipes if you have some good ones. We’re loving the soymaker.
I’ve been meaning to do a post on some of the ways we’ve incorporated those buckets of okara into our diets – that might be another good one to write up on my next trip. As for monkeys and SE Asian food, am sure they will figure again. There are so many good vegetarian options, especially in Malaysia. And monkeys in the wild have always been a source of fascination. I was especially fond of these guys in Japan: http://goo.gl/CVhe4, who I spent many hours photographing.
Love the link! “Geronimo” made me laugh loudly enough the kids and hubby came to have a look. You’re right. The younguns are insane (any mammal species, I’ll add). In the kitchen making Thanksgiving dinner. I’ll be back to blog-read by Tuesday. Cheers!