Pass it on…
Has anyone been watching The Victorian Farm? The series has presented some interesting ideas about food issues a hundred years ago.
Last week, historian Ruth Goodman mentioned that it was possible to buy leftover food in certain shops in Victorian times. Places like hotels and gentlemen’s clubs made their surplus available for the poor to buy. A neat way of addressing food waste!
However, it got me thinking. One of the ways we can reduce the amount of food we throw away at home is to give it away to someone who can use it. I’m not talking about charity necessarily, or offending anyone with my cast-offs, but the sharing of good food that might otherwise find its way into the bin. For instance, even with a hearty Sunday breakfast, it is sometimes difficult to get through the 21 eggs that our chickens lay each week! So when the childminder had the boys an extra hour, I gave her some fresh eggs as a thank you.
We were given a whole wheel of French Brie last week, so our neighbours got a huge wedge and were delighted. After Christmas, I was left with a box of chocolates that on my new healthy eating regime would only languish in the larder uneaten, so I wrapped them up for the people who invited us to lunch at the weekend. When the husband brings home another enormous box of fruit and veg, and we already have a mountain in the fridge, I’ll take it to the librarian who spends ages tracking down obscure books for me.
Pass it on!
I think it’s a wonderful idea. The wasted food thrown away by restaurants, hotels, and grocery stores is unbelievable. There is a cult here in the states called Freganism, perhaps it is in the UK as well, where people rescue wasted food, but this would be a much nicer option.
If you have a bounty that you know won’t get used up due to gifts, fantastic bargains, garden surplus, etc. pass some of it on to someone who will use it. I always do this with perishables before a vacation if they don’t get used up. But what about passing on some extra vegetables to a neighbor instead of letting them go to waste and then hitting the compost pile?