Why Waste?
Anyone who knows me at all well knows that I am notoriously cheap. My iPhone 6 has a cracked screen, but I keep it that way- and I will use it like that until it can no longer be used. Because, why waste? It isn’t that I don’t like nice things, but the disposable nature of so much in our society really is jarring to me.
My father was a very frugal man. He once gave me a long lecture about how no man needs more than two pairs of pants. Suffice it to say that snappy dressing was not his gift. Maybe he was taking things too far, but as all of my kids will tell you, I also have been known to take things too far. Food waste is a particular pet peeve of mine and I am truly gifted (if I do say so myself) at the recycling of leftovers. I sometimes fantasize that there is a cooking show on tv dedicated to the clever recycling of leftovers- and I will get a spot on the show and mop the floor with the competition! But I digress…
About a year ago my younger son discovered some Nutella in a far recess of a cabinet and asked if he could eat it, noting that it was well passed the expiration date. I assured him that Nutella was nothing but chemicals and couldn’t go bad. He put it on some bread, noting that it looked really weird- but with my strong encouragement he ate it all. Fortunately he quickly vomited and suffered no other ill effects. You would think from this I would have gotten much more diligent about checking food expiration dates…but I still had some learning to do. Fast forward a few months, and my husband remarked that the oatmeal I had made tasted horrible (he was the only one eating it). I said, “of course it tastes horrible- it’s oatmeal! No one actually likes that taste of it”- and he ate the whole bowl. A few days later I figured I should also have a healthy breakfast so I made a double portion- enough for both of us. On my first mouthful I learned what a mouth full of mold tastes like. Dis.gus.ting. Turns out it had been in storage when we had moved to Europe and was years passed its expiration date. And so I learned, oatmeal can actually go bad!
So now I am more diligent about using food BEFORE the expiration date, to make sure I don’t have to toss it. I saw a billboard in NYC the other day that said 40% of food in America is wasted. I have no idea how that is calculated or if it is true, but certainly a lot of food is wasted. This can’t be good for anyone.
I love that there is more of a focus on not being wasteful. I love my Rothy’s shoes that are made out of recycled plastic. I am not so naive to think that every “environmental” initiative actually does any good (note the devastation caused by mining for the metals needed for batteries in electric cars- and that the electricity in said cars comes from the grid, 40% or so of which comes from coal). But I do think that using junk that would otherwise be tossed away to make something good and useful, definitely makes logical sense to me. More and more companies are looking for ways to do with what we already have, and that is pretty cool.
In this polarized world where every issue seems to be a hot potato, not being wasteful feels like something that everyone could rally around. Perhaps on the left it is characterized more in environmental terms, and perhaps on the right it is characterized more in not being frivolous with our resources — but in this case we can end up at the same place in needing to be good stewards.
We need to find more topics like this, that can unite us.
Also- don’t eat Nutella past its expiration date!
