Super Frugal Grocery Mini Challenge #1: Eat What You Have

Am I getting sick of sunchokes? A little. Am I still eating them? Yup!

(Read all Super Frugal Grocery Challenge posts here!)

Today's challenge, should you choose to accept it: Eat something that you already have in the house, especially if you don't wanna.

The concept of being able to eat whatever we want, whenever we want, was completely unthinkable even 100 years ago— and still is in most of the world. Although I'm happy for the modern convenience that allows me to eat quinoa and keep frozen blueberries around for smoothies, this overabundance of foods has helped shape our culture into one that idolizes personal preference at the cost of everything else: seasonality, what can be sustainably harvested and shipped, and what is wasted without a second thought. 

How many times has something gone bad in the fridge because you "just don't feel like eating it?" I'm guilty of this too! Food is so incredibly (and artificially) cheap in the U.S. that it's hard to feel any sense of obligation to eat food that we're not actively craving at the moment. But eating the food we have— especially when we just don't wanna— is a way of recognizing and respecting the work that went into planting the seeds, weeding and watering and fertilizing, harvesting (plus, if you're talking about animal products, doing that whole process twice), packaging, and shipping.

I've already written about food waste, but some quick facts bear repeating:

• In the US, agriculture accounts for at least 9% of our greenhouse gas emissions, although much more than that if you take into consideration manufacturing (of food-like substances, packaging, and so on) and transportation, not to mention the issues of clean-up from fertilizer run-off, concentrated animal feeding operation pollution, water rights issues, and more. 

• In the US, 30-40% of food grown is wasted, about 160 billion dollars' worth per year. 

• Of that percentage, nearly 40% of the wasted food is directly thrown out by consumers. 

• Some studies suggest that Americans waste roughly one pound of food per day.

Each year, 30 million acres of land and 4.2 trillion gallons of water are wasted on food that goes uneaten. 

• When food is thrown into a landfill, as 90% of food waste is, it emits methane, an extremely harmful greenhouse gas. (Proper composting eliminates this problem, but there is still the embodied energy of the food to consider.) In fact, if global food waste were a country, it would be the #3 emitter of greenhouse gases, only after China and the US.  In terms of carbon emissions, food waste is often a bigger concern than plastic. 

We have the choice to do better. A lot of this waste happens by accident, but much of it is because we are simply conditioned to think that we have to eat what we want to eat for every single meal— which, historically and globally speaking, is ridiculous.

Today, I challenge you to look at what's in your fridge and pantry before you decide what you're going to have for dinner. If there is something that is going to go bad soon, that you've been putting off eating, or that you made and aren't thrilled about, eat that instead of what "sounds good." It will be cheaper, help avoid food waste, and, most importantly, serve as a reminder of the incredible privilege of deciding what to eat every day.

Good luck!

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