stop throwing food away

I believe that I’ve been doing so well with this goal lately, that I’ll now be able to mark it as done. My amount of food being thrown away had dimished a lot.
Moreover, I’ve acquired a strict mentality about not throwing food away and it has been working like a charm. I really do not want to throw any more food away and I do my best to avoid having to. But at the same time I do give myself the right to occasionally throw something away, because it’s just not very appealing when I feel like throwing up when I’m at my university’s cafeteria and just can’t keep on eating anymore.
But in any case, in my own opinion I’ve made great progress! I’ll keep on paying attention to this, even more so when Juho and I move together. I think we’ll be fine, though, we see pretty eye to eye on this.

^{Maybe next I should try dumpster diving, hmm? :P}

I’ve been keeping track of the food I’ve thrown away ever since the end of July and I thought that now might be a good time to tie some loose ends together, in a way.
So here’s a compilation of the past weeks and what I threw away:

week 31 – some potatoes, can of chocolate spread
week 32 – leftovers of two meals
week 33 – nothing!
week 34 – leftover rice and vegetables, quarter of a bag of bread
week 35 – a bowl of cereals and some milk, rest of garlic dip
week 36 – three kiwis
week 37 – one banana, hamburger meal leftovers
week 38 – a bit of salad, small piece of bread, some olives and a few turkey cold cuts
week 39 – a small portion of rice and spinach pancakes with sauce, bit of blueberries, some bread
week 40 – two slices of bread
week 41 – few small slices of mushrooms
week 42 – nothing!
week 43 – leftovers of two meals, one potato
week 44 – one small chocolate bunny
week 45 – one tomato
week 46 – nothing!

It seems like the main things I throw away are leftovers of meals, vegetables/fruits and bread. I’ve tried to pay attention to these things more and more, and I think I have been doing better now.
I try not to make or take more food than I can eat at once, I don’t buy vegetables or fruits that often and when I do these days, I try to eat them asap. Bread has always been a major problem, I’m working on that. I’m in a bit of pickle now because my toaster passed away tragically, but I’ll survive.
Logging things down here is also quite effective – I dare not throw anything away anymore because I’m going to get a huge guilt-trip over it. :’D Well, whatever works…
Juho also suggested some time ago that I should concentrate on the food items that I have the most trouble with and start implementing them into my diet bit by bit, making their amount larger the further I get without having to throw anything away. That might work.

One tomato got old and thus thrown away.

I found a very old chocolate bunny in one of my drawers last night. The bunny had turned quite grey, so I figured it would probably be best to just throw it away. Sorry, bunny. :P
I’ll try hard not to cross my limit of max one piece of food a week again.

This week wasn’t as successful as last week – I had to throw away the remains of a meal from the previous week (chicken doesn’t last for very long and I was away from home for several days), I was too full to finish my meal on Thursday so a bit of vegetables and chicken got thrown away at a pizzeria (because there was so little left that it was no use taking the leftovers with me & the others were too full to eat them, too) and last night I threw away one potato, because I was too full again and our fish sauce had run out already. It’s not nice to eat just dry potatoes, especially when they’re very big potatoes.

Well, at least this goal is being effective: I feel more and more sad every time I have to throw something away, so I pay more attention to trying to preserve my food and eat it in good time, too. That’s a very positive thing.

I didn’t throw away any food last week! I’m very happy about this progress.
In addition, I’ve learnt to find new solutions for food that is about to go to waste: donating it to others! :D This week I managed to avoid throwing away several things, by giving them to (for example) Juho, Heikki, Teemu and the birds in my yard. Works like a charm, hahaa~

Things have gone better these past two weeks on this front:
last week I only had to throw away two slices of bread that had gone moldy a day before the expiration date (which I thought was very unfair)
and this week, so far, I’ve only thrown away few little slices of mushrooms that had been put into my tuna pizza today at the university. I’m not a fan of mushrooms, I feel like I’m eating slugs and snails when I eat mushrooms. :s

Bad start for the week food-wise:
I already used my weekly quota of maximum one piece of food thrown away here at university earlier today, I threw away some rice and three small spinach “pancakes” along with some sauce, because I was getting really full and I was also in a hurry. :/ I really should start to listen to my first insticts when they say “that’s enough, don’t take any more food on your plate”. Especially when I need to eat very quickly in between lectures.

I’ll need to be really careful for the rest of the week and try to avoid having to throw any more food away.

• Last weekend in Turku I threw out a banana that I had been carrying with me for the whole weekend. On Sunday morning it did not look so good anymore. :s
• I also had to throw out some food after we had eaten in an Irish restaurant & bar in Turku, because I was just so full and could not eat any more. I also couldn’t take the leftovers with me, so they had to be thrown out. Shame.
• Threw away a bit of salad at the university, because I was in such a hurry and couldn’t finish it all. Also a very small piece of bread got thrown away.
• Some olives I had gotten from a pizzeria with my & my mother’s salads had to be thrown away when I just kept forgetting to eat them. After a week they were not so safe anymore.
• A few slices of turkey cold cuts had to be thrown out when they smelled and felt very odd.
  I have a feeling that there was still something else, but I just can’t remember. I’m not sure.

I’d like to diminish this into a state where I would only throw away a maximum of one piece of food every week. That would be a very good start, from which I could work forward.

This week I threw out three kiwis. Annoying, really – first they were rock hard for two weeks and then they were already too soft. Meh. :P

I’ll start paying more attention to the food I throw away when I’m eating out; meaning that I’ll log those instances here as well. I will probably be eating at the university more again, so I’ll pay attention to my meal sizes there. Should stop taking salad so much because I hardly ever end up eating it anyway. This week I did, however, eat it too. Good for me!