Are you one of those people [sheepishly raises hand] who throws out food as soon as the expiration date comes? Or maybe you are weird about milk anyway so even the couple of days before the expiration date seems suspect to you [clears throat and tries to blend into the couch]? Well then you might be throwing away perfectly good food.
And as a compost company hoping to eventually put itself out of business because food waste is no longer a problem, we want to make sure you aren’t throwing out edible food!
First thing first: federal regulations don’t require expiration dates on anything except infant formula. Those sell-by dates are actually a signifier for grocery stores to keep track and rotate their inventory. And those best-by dates? They are actually just there to ensure that you eat the food at peak freshness and quality so that you won’t be disappointed in their product. Most foods are pretty obviously good or bad when you look at or smell them, so you can judge for yourself whether you should eat the food or not.
Part of the problem is that some foods (like berries) aren’t great at the end of their life, but aren’t exactly moldy and bad. So what do you do? Do you eat that mushy raspberry and risk a gag reflex (I seriously have a mental problem about “bad” food)? No! One thing you can do is freeze those less than super awesome berries and then throw them into a smoothie for breakfast at a later date.
Don’t have a lot of freezer space? No worries! Make those mushy raspberries even mushier by mixing and mushing with a fork and then turn them into a tasty raspberry vinaigrette!
Further Reading
Why the Pandemic Is So Bad in America – an intersectional look at the different factors that led to the current crises, including systemic racism and the failure to care for the environment.
The Color of Climate Series by Drew Costly is a weekly column exploring how climate change and other environmental issues uniquely impact the future of communities of color.
Defunding the Police Is an Environmental Justice Issue – Black Lives STILL Matter and we need to make sure we are continuing to work for racial and environmental justice.
Compost Collective Book Club (sort of)!
In a future post we will be reviewing Food Justice by Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi so go ahead and read along with us!