Food-Waste Reuse Ideas in our Homes

Hi all, dear readers

In this blog, I thought I would gather ideas to reuse food waste ideas. Maybe you are already doing most of them, but you never know you might find something useful. Remember the times when we bought so much #food and binned half of it? Today, we live in a more food-waste conscious and money-saving world, being more aware of what we cause to our #environment.

Basically, the food waste dumped on our landfills decomposes anaerobically and releases methane, producing greenhouse gas that is 25x more harmful than carbon dioxide. And this is not just from cooked left-over meals, it includes vegetable and fruit peels, rinds too.

What definitely helps is knowing what you store everywhere. Stick a list maybe on dry goods cupboard doors and amend accordingly. Ideally write the items and its expired date. It will help browse through easier what to use up first. Your fridge items are the most important to look at first anyway and it is more visible to check. Some ideas listed here are collected in a table so you can even print it off if you like and hang it on your kitchen wall or fridge:

​Bones from meat & vegetable scraps, limp or wilted veggie left-overs, parmesan rinds	Freeze in scrap bags to use it as a stock later.
Stale bread	Grind into breadcrumbs or cube it up and bake it into croutons and store.
Fresh bread (when you know it will last for a while)	​Once you slice it up, keep it in the fridge or half of it or freeze so you only take out as much as you need. This can be done of course from a completely fresh bread too.
Lettuce hearts, pineapple tops, celery, scallions, romaine lettuce, fennel, lemon grass, ginger (from its shoots), celery, leafy greens in general	​Grow your own, all you need is a little water first, new roots should grow within a week or two. Check online how to best re-grow vegetables individually.
Green tops of carrots, radishes, fennel, turnips, beets, celery, cauliflower or kohlrabi	​Blend them together with nuts (macadamia is great here) and garlic to make a waste-free pesto. Use them as substitute veg in soups, salads and dressings. Juice them into a green smoothie.
​Citrus zests, peels	When you only use the juice for baking or cooking, grate the peel and store the zest in the freezer. You can use zest to make lemon and orange sugar, homemade candied peel or add it to sauces, marinades, cakes, frostings. Citrus peels added to home care products (hand cream, shower gel) giving a natural scent and aroma to them. Lavender, rosemary, mint or rose petals are also great additions. Scent stinky garbage.
​Jam left-overs Jam idea	​Add some oil and vinegar for a salad dressing. Have you mixed it in a plain yoghurt before? It is much cheaper and yummier than the pre-made ones.
Apple peels	With added hot water makes a nice tea. Roast the apple peels and add a bit of melted butter and cinnamon sugar and you get a yummy apple crisp snack. The acids of the apple are also a great cleaning agent, simmer the peels in water (20 min) a dirty pan and rinse.
​Potato peels, wash and scrub them properly. Do not use green skin and spotty skins; they contain a toxic compound called solanine!	​Bake them in the oven into homemade crisps with seasoning and oil, maybe cheese, for a great snack. Not recommended for sensitive teeth or gums! Clean your sinks (stainless steel) and mirrors with the wet inside of the potato peel, because of its high starch content it works well, wipe it off with a moistened towel. For mirrors, after a potato peel scrub use a dry cloth.
Lemon halves	Squeeze over the stovetop and scrub it clean. Decalcify naturally, use fresh lemon juice to descale your kettle, with the same process as the chemical decalcifier or vinegar. Lemon juice is 100% natural.
Jarred pickle juice	Add left-over vegetables to marinade, keep it closed and refrigerated. makes a good snack.
Jarred seasoned oils from sundried tomatoes or roasted peppers	​Excellent to use on salads, but keep it in the fridge.
Expired, sour milk	​Soak silverware with soured milk before cleaning, to make it shiny. Enzymes in sour milk can also help clean a septic tank, pouring it down in a toilet if needed. Sour milk makes a great fertilizer in gardens, pour it at the base of the plants. Also, it is an excellent substitute for sour cream and buttermilk in baking and cooking. Raw sour milk still has enzymes and probiotics. It is bacterial poison to drink it but the cooking takes away all the bad bacteria while giving dishes creamy and delicious flavours. Check Source 2 below for recipes!
Banana peels great for so many things	Due to its rich nutrients, makes a great compost for soil. Rub it on teeth to whiten the enamel (contains: manganese, magnesium, and potassium). Potentially has properties to cure acne by rubbing it on them. Also, moisturiser dry skin, rubbed on. For splinters, hold it on the skin so it will soften the skin to take it out. To wipe off plants' dusty leaves, allowing the plant to absorb more light for photosynthesis. Of course, use a dry cloth afterwards to wipe off any extra streaks.
​Vanilla pods & cinnamon sticks	​Make flavoured sugars, clean them and air dry before adding it to a jar of sugar.
Pumpkin seeds	​Clean and dry the seeds and then either air dry or roast them. Bake them into a bread, use it as toppings for soups and salads or in cereals and yogurts. It is also a great snack.
Left-over stale cake and cookies	Toast them in the oven and crumble them well. Great to sprinkle over creamy layered desserts or yogurts. You can mix it into a frosting or coating cream, they can be made into cake pops as well.
​Eggshells	​Eggshells provide calcium carbonate, magnesium carbonate, magnesium phosphate, and calcium phosphate that is great for fertilizing green plants. Don’t use it for rhododendrons, hydrangeas, or berries as they need acid soils. Crack the eggshells, clean and dry them and soak them overnight in a watering can and water your plants the next day as usual. Or powder the shells and mix it into the soil.
​Coffee grounds	Another natural fertilizer for plants providing nitrogen, potassium, and phosphate. Lack of potassium shows on yellow and weakened leaves. Coffee grounds should only be used occasionally because of its acidic pH value (on rhododendrons, angel’s trumpets, hydrangeas, blueberries, or roses). Dry the wet left-over grounds overnight on a baking sheet lined with a paper towel. Also, a great skin exfoliator and cleanser for acne-prone skin. Keep it in a jar in the shower or mix it in with your shower gel. Use up freshly made grounds but let it cool first. For more sensitive skin there are a lot of recipes online to make your exfoliating experience kinder.
​Cucumber peels, left-overs	Moisturize the skin well, put it in your bathing water. Creates a natural hydrating mask by just putting them on your face. Commonly used on tired eyes and also excellent for dry areas of the skin, like cheeks and forehead.
Left-over black tea bags	Let them cool, leave it in the fridge and use it for tired, stressed eyes every time you need it. The tannins and alkaloids in the tea bag supply antibacterial, anti-viral, and anti-inflammatory effects.
Melon’s light green rinds	Make it into pickles instead of cucumber, use it for salads, gazpachos or curries.
​Herb stems	Infuse the stems in oils and vinegar, which can be added to pesto, chimichurri sauce, relish, tapenade and stuffing.

Ideas are endless, so whatever food left-over you have and you can’t think of anything how to re-purpose them, do your search online. Many fantastic authors advise valuable ways of reusing or reducing your food waste. Naturally, re-used foods should be composted accordingly when they cannot be fully used. And now, please share with us your ideas that make a big difference to your household.

Thank you!

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Sources 1. Reusing Food Waste, Scraps, and Leftovers, Move for Hunger, April 18, 2017 https://moveforhunger.org/reusing-food-waste-scraps-leftovers 2. 11 Incredibly Delicious Recipes Which Use Sour Milk, Tastessence https://tastessence.com/recipes-to-make-using-sour-milk 3. 11 tips to reuse food remains in the household, Foodal, Nina-Kristin Isensee, October 8, 2016 https://foodal.com/knowledge/how-to/reuse-food-remains/ 4. Benefits of Using Coffee Grounds for Your Skin and Face, Very Well Health, Angela Palmer, 11 May 2020 https://www.verywellhealth.com/coffee-grounds-for-the-skin-and-face-4126110 5. 6 Smart Ways to Reuse Food Scraps and Leftovers, Kitchn, Kelli Foster, 8 June 2019 https://www.thekitchn.com/5-delicious-uses-for-common-kitchen-scraps-167760