Friday, February 19, 2016

Waste

After reading the book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up last year, I made it one of my goals to declutter and streamline my belongings.  At first, it was quite easy to do. I had accumulated many useless things over the years, and the pile of thrift store donations grew quickly.

I loved the feeling of getting rid of all those unused clothes and household items, because it made our house immediately feel more spacious and tidy. I also loved having an excuse to visit the thrift store, because it would give me a chance to look through the store and discover quirky items or bargains. But the more often I went, the more I noticed how much of the store was filled with garbage. Lots and lots of cheaply made, useless, ugly garbage.

Since then, I've been trying to be more mindful about our household consumption and waste habits. My partner and I recently attempted an experiment in reusing food waste, by using leftover buttermilk and dredging flour mix from a fried chicken recipe. The buttermilk and flour mix were diverted from the trash, into buttermilk biscuits to accompany our chicken dinner.

The experiment was a partial success. We ended up with a dozen paprika-tinged biscuits that were as tender and fluffy as they should be. Only these were terribly salty, on account of the TWO TABLESPOONS of salt that went into the flour mix. Which begs the question of which is more wasteful: throwing out the buttermilk and flour mix, or forcing yourself to eat salty-as-hell biscuits in the name of waste reduction?

In any case, it was a good reminder to use only what you really need.

4 comments:

  1. good attempt! i wouldn't of thought biscuits but it makes sense.

    in the last couple of months i've been thinking a lot about waste...particularly food waste. every week bags of leftovers or produce that has gone bad get composted, it makes me a little irritated.

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    1. I hear ya. Often we buy more vegetables than we can eat. I try to blanch any wilting vegetables to extend its shelf-life for a few more days.

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  2. Hmmm...I would have tossed those biscuits. :S F and I barely toss any food as we are uber careful at buying only what we can eat. In fact, F will mash up all the left over bits of food into a meal to mixed results, lol.

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    1. We ended up eating most of them, and tossing the rest. They were pretty terrible. At some point we were crumbling them up and using it like salt to season other foods. Buying only what you can eat is the way to go.

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