“Waste not Want not”
In the world of hyper consumerism and 24/7 society, Canadians waste on average 31 billion dollars of food each year https://tfpc.to/food-waste-landing/food-waste-theissue. Food production is the single biggest cause for deforestation, water extraction and loss of bio diversity (Wasted! The story of food waste. Anthony Bourdain).
It has taken me a while to develop systems to minimize food waste within my own household. I have yet to reach zero waste – it is a quest and is a continuous process.
Years ago my brilliant friend Shelagh Freedman introduced me to the idea of broth. Prior to that I occasionally used generic bouillon cubes to add flavor to my dishes and sometimes made do with spices and water. Shelagh is a great lake swimmer- she swam continuously for about 26 hours from Niagara-on-the-lake to Ontario Place at the age of 17 and during her marathon swim the only thing she could stomach was beef consommé. I became fascinated with the power of broth. My ideas took shape and were strongly supported by my husband, who is a big proponent of sustainable living, recycling and composting.
As I started to support our local farmers – I realized the price of organic chicken from our local farmers was a bit more on the expensive side (rightfully so, as our local farmers have no subsidies they can depend on, unlike big farms and those in agribusiness) therefore; I want to use each part of that chicken. I always save the bones from my cooked chicken and if there is skin, I use that too. I keep the tail end and bits of vegetable stalks around and save them to add to my broth for extra flavor and goodness, the more variety, the better. All of the unusable vegetable peels go into the compost, which in turn provides beautiful soil for our urban gardens.
Soup is food for the soul. It always fills me with hope. When my child is feeling under the weather I use my homemade broth and transform into a soup, a different variation each time depending on the ailment: sometimes it is mellow and simple such as broth with peas when we can’t stomach anything else, spicy and full of heat when we have a cold and need our sinuses cleared, something rich and creamy for when it is cold outside and on and on.
These are just ideas to explore and the journey is the most beautiful part. Cooking is a big part of my life. It is always an adventure.
An Average Household’s Food Waste in a medium sized Ontario Municipality
(Massow and Martin, n.d.)
