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Post by armjr on Nov 21, 2020 20:03:21 GMT -5
I'll preface this post with the following:
I have not ever been wanting for something to eat. I have never felt hunger, ever. I have never not had more food than I could eat. But, I was raised by people who lived the exact opposite in their early lives. #1 wife is from the same background as I and was also raised by people who did indeed experience true hunger.
Hence we were deeply instilled with the concept of never wasting food.
This world is filling up with people who have no idea of what it actually takes to produce the food they eat, and waste.
I was washing a batch of mustard greens today and thinking about some folks who turn up their noses at such fare even though they have likely never had fresh greens. The process of growing the food is just the start of the work involved. The picking, washing, prepping, cooking, preserving the food is equally, if not more important than scratching in the dirt.
These same people have never raised an animal (which by the time it is ready for its intended purpose is almost a pet), killed it, slaughtered it, butchered it, packaged it and eaten it. There is some real life going on when you do those things. I will admit packaged pork chops from the grocery store are MUCH easier, but you can't lose sight of what went on prior to that. It wasn't pretty and packaged.
Okay, all that is fine, but then comes the part that I really take issue with.
I was watching one of those cooking shows the other day and the "Cook" was cutting up some tomatoes and Bell Peppers. She cut a big ole chunk off of both ends of the tomatoes and peppers and tossed them in the trash and proceeded to slice up what was left. I was thinking, "man, by the time I get a Bell Pepper like that to the cutting board, the only thing that hits the trash is the seeds and the stem. They are simply wasting food. So I got to watching more closely. By and large, the TV chefs waste a great deal of food, and smile and laugh while they are doing it.
We are a food rich nation and yet people are hungry? What seems to be the problem. I think it is insensitive, selfish apathy that comes from abundance. Look at old pictures from the 30s, 40s, and 50s. Everyone is skinny as a rail, and it's not healthy skinny. It's not enough food skinny. Then look at pictures today. You won't see those sunken facial features. What you will see (even among those who profess hunger) is over weight (if not obese) people. Even those who are thin are healthy thin and are that way because they want to be and work at it.
I don't have an answer for all this or even an explanation. But I do know that abundance is no excuse for wastefulness.
Okay, putting the soap back in the box and putting it away...
Alan
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Post by gardendmpls on Nov 21, 2020 20:52:43 GMT -5
Disclaimer- all my food waste, with the exception of chicken and avocado, goes to the chickens who recycle it into eggs and entertainment. That being said, I am reminded of my parent's admonition, "eat all the food on your plate. Children are starving in (insert name of continent or country)". Remember thinking, "so if I eat all the food, they won't be starving? Maybe we should pack it up and ship it there."
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Post by Latitude33 on Nov 21, 2020 21:05:34 GMT -5
:-[
I am the second of four rotten kids my parents were sidled with. Two younger sisters and a toadish older brother. My parents coped with the loss of one child, a twin of one sister, and the challenges of raising a child with Cerebral Palsy during the very unenlightened 1960's. Up until my twelfth birthday, we kids didn't know any hardship, especially, nothing on the scale of The Great Depression and WWII rationing that my parents, aunts and uncles spoke of. Dad, the sole breadwinner, passed suddenly and unexpectedly at home. Mom had been the stereotypical 50's/60's stay at home housewife up until that point and was suddenly with zero incoming resources. We kids had to deal with a new reality for which we were not prepared, and to use the PC contemporary term, food insecurity, was top of the list. We made it through, without government assistance, but by being frugal, and by maximizing what we did have. There were no scraps. Stems, greens, trimmings mainly ended up in the ever present stock pot. Seeds were tossed into the garden beds. We began growing everything we could, there wasn't the luxury of not liking something.
Don't get me wrong, this condition didn't last forever, but the memory of it did. Mom eventually remarried a nice enough guy that was able to provide for my sisters until they were able to move on. "Food insecurity" can leave a lasting, indelible, impression. It is real and it exists in in almost every town and city. To this day, I have a hard time leaving anything on the plate. Thanks armjr for spotlighting this issue. It's not insignificant, it's everywhere. Waste not, want not.
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Post by desertwoman on Nov 21, 2020 23:36:23 GMT -5
Both my parents were from immigrant Italian families. They grew up during the depression and food and job scarcity was real. My parents instilled 'waste not; want not', as well. I never experienced 'food insecurity' growing up (or as an adult) and our fridge and pantry were always well stocked but I learned how to stretch food. I even impressed my dad when he realized I would make a pot of soup- say split pea- with a hamhock, let the ham flavor permeate the pot of soup. Then I would pull it out, whole, rinse it off and save it for a second pot of soup at which time we would then eat the meat from the hammock. To this day, I don't waste anything. It irks me , too to see the food that gets wasted and thrown away- at least put it in a compost pile if you feel compelled to chop off extravagant ends!! And though not food related, in this same vein both hubby and I will squeeze every last bit of toothpaste from the tube- where others would toss the tube when it gets inconvenient to squeeze any more out of it , we are milking that tube for all it's worth! You can get another weeks worth- at least!- of brushings! This world is filling up with people who have no idea of what it actually takes to produce the food they eat, and waste. When we had the orchard, we would have kids come out to see 'where fruit comes from'. They had no idea fruit grew on a tree. They only knew fruit was gotten, at best, from a display in a grocery store or in plastic wrapped 3-paks, or such. It was thrilling to see the light go on when they realized food was more than pre-packaged items. We had them armed with small orchard baskets and climbing ladders to pick ripe peaches or cherries or apples. And the wonder in my nephews eyes, when for the first time they watched me pop a whole pumpkin into the oven to bake, for the upcoming Thanksgiving pumpkin pie. And then learning to roll out the pie dough and assembling the pies. Until then they only knew (pumpkin) pie to come packaged from the grocery store.
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Post by SpringRain🕊️ on Nov 22, 2020 0:21:49 GMT -5
Interesting, especially relevant during the pandemic as massive numbers of people are lining up to get food donations, and a condition which addresses much more than knowing how to grow food. It's that what is consumed by many today is not real food; it's manufactured food, most costly, less nourishing, less healthy and often laden with chemicals and junk.
I've felt for some time that gardening should be taught in schools, starting with grade school.
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Post by emmsmommy on Nov 22, 2020 3:28:31 GMT -5
I can't say that we've ever been without food, but growing up it was usually green beans, potatoes and meat at every meal, every day, with an occasional change. The beans and potatoes were raised by us and sometimes the meat was too. My grandma and great grandma used to scrape the bottom of a pot until every last bit was gone. Vegetable scraps went to the "slop pile," which was our version of compost. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and indeed most of my friends grew up to be food wasters or reliant on fast food. Most probably couldn't survive for a week with what they have at home. My SIL from my first marriage used to laugh at me when she saw that I had a stockpile of paper towels, toilet paper and Pepsi (my first husband's vice) in our spare bedroom as well as baking staples. My first husband's friends at work couldn't believe he had fresh baked cookies in his lunch and I always ended up making extra so he could share. I would always stock up on paper goods and food when they were on sale as it was the way I was raised. I could only name one friend at that time who had a garden.
I was widowed in my twenties and it was quite a change as I suddenly found 3/4 of my income gone and a new mortgage to worry about. I still remained frugal, but I spent more on food for my animals than for myself, simply because between work and school, I was never home, and there just wasn't much left after the bills were paid. I remarried a few years later and was surprised to see that my in laws wasted so much food. My FIL didn't like leftovers and my husband's supper was usually was some high sodium processed food in a can since his mom as at work. My husband had never experienced food from other cultures and was always reluctant to try new things, but that quickly changed. We have had moments when we were unsure of how the bills were going to be paid, but I can't say we were ever without food. And yes, we do eat leftovers until they are gone.
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Post by Mumsey on Nov 22, 2020 5:46:45 GMT -5
We never went hungry either. Dad always had a garden and he raised cows (for meat and milk), pigs and chickens. We learned early on to eat what was offered. Mom was not raised that way, but she soon fit right in. We were poor, but as kids we didn't know it. Looking back, I now realize we weren't poor, Dad was just a miser and hoarder of money, so looking poor was a choice on his part. It still is! I don't recall ever noticing that other kids looked richer than we seemed to be. When times were lean, before the next garden or butchering day, Dad would hunt. Rabbit, squirrel and squab (pigeon), which is actually quite good! There was a huge cow watering tank in the basement that was always full of potatoes. Dad grew tons of them. So many that he would have to plow the rows, us kids would walk behind with buckets of seed and plant them. At harvest time he would plow the rows up and we would go on a potato hunt! We thought it was great fun. Mom would sell the eggs, the "egg man" would come by once a week to collect them and he paid on the spot. It was grocery money for the week.
I know there are food insecurities, then I see food banks giving food away to anyone, no questions asked. I just wonder how many people really don't need it, but go get it out of greed, I would hope these people are the minority. We would never even consider it. Just last week a food bank was at our community center parking lot, which we can see from our house. Tons of huge boxes were unloaded, it wasn't long before the parking lot was full of cars. This went on for 2 hours, til all the boxes were gone.
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Post by reuben on Nov 22, 2020 6:06:11 GMT -5
We never went hungry, but my grandparents lived much different lives. On my dad's side they grew vegetables and had some chickens and pigs, partially because they didn't have money. They actually paid the doctor sometimes in chickens or other fare which they did have.
And, as one person has stated, I "have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility."
Also, I've seen plenty of people and places where the circumstances are much different than my own.
Hence, I try not to waste.
And I'm kinda cheap, anyway.
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Post by James on Nov 22, 2020 11:25:41 GMT -5
I grew up out on the farm. Dad had milk cows, and a team of work horses and a riding pony. He would always plant a garden for corn, bean, potatoes and squash. There was a chicken coop and chickens for the eggs. We lived by the river so there was hunting and fishing. We did not eat fancy, but we never went hungry. Dad would kill a 2 year old steer for the freezer in the fall. We did not have home freezers, but the drug store down the road had freezer space to rent.
..... and yes, at dinner mother would always say: "Clean up your plate!"
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Post by reuben on Nov 22, 2020 11:44:21 GMT -5
..... and yes, at dinner mother would always say: "Clean up your plate!" The details of this story are a little foggy, as I wasn't even alive at the time, but it goes something like this. My dad, probably aged 5-10 years, pushing around an undesired vegetable on his plate, refusing to eat it. His mother - "What you don't eat for dinner you have to eat for breakfast." O, the horror! I can say that in my youth it took a whole lot of butter and salt to get the lima beans down, and the colder they got the worse they tasted. Still not a fan.
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Post by James on Nov 22, 2020 11:54:30 GMT -5
lima beans, "Still not a fan."
Interesting. I don't recall mother ever fixing lima beans.
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Post by reuben on Nov 22, 2020 12:32:59 GMT -5
Lima beans might be a southern thing.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Nov 22, 2020 13:40:41 GMT -5
The mention of lima beans reminds me of something I did as a child - my sister hated lima beans, so I would eat hers, as secretly as we could do it, and she would "owe me", either doing a chore of mine, or giving me something I liked. There were a lot of things I really didn't like, back then - let's face it, some canned vegetables, like Brussels sprouts, are what turned some people against vegetables in general! Fortunately, I only had to eat these in the early years - from 7 to 10 is when I lived in Spain (Dad was in the Navy), Mom learned about fresh vegetables - there was a Mercado not far from the apartment! No garden, but in many ways better, with every kind of veggie and meat you can imagine. The first place I started learning a lot about food, asking constant questions about all those foods. Those 3 years, even though I was young, is when I learned to love food, and also to try just about anything - sometimes to gross out my sister, but I'd find out it was good! Mom never got into trying to cook exotic foods, but she did introduce me to bread making in my early years, when she was an Adelle Davis fan, and would bake WW bread for us. She got lazy in Spain - there was a bakery right next to the entrance to our building, and we could smell the bread baking early in the morning!
I'm appalled by those people who will not eat leftovers. After all, many things are actually better leftover! A cousin of mine has a husband like this, and when she starts complaining about him I tell her I don't want to hear it - if someone lived with me, they would either eat leftovers, go hungry, or cook something for themselves, which this guy can't, or won't, do. No telling how much waste there is there.
The way most people cook is wasteful, but as gardeners, we always try to use everything. Granted, not everyone has a garden, or a way to compost the waste, or animals to feed it to, but they should still be trying to use as much of everything as possible. And certainly, once cooked, not wasting any of it!
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Post by Wheelgarden on Nov 22, 2020 13:56:40 GMT -5
Lima beans (or "butterbeans", as they're often called) are popular here in the south, but it seems that few of my friends and family care for them. I'm fond of them, myself. my sister hated lima beans, so I would eat hers I took advantage of that, too, with my brother and sister.
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Post by James on Nov 22, 2020 14:06:39 GMT -5
"and would bake WW bread for us. " Very nice. I still make WW Bread here. Thursday is bread making day here. So you know what I will be doing on Thursday......
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