Day 65 – Happy Frozen Food Day! President Ronald Reagan enjoyed frozen food so much that on March 6, 1984, he designated the day as Frozen Food Day. You might be unfamiliar with this “holiday”, but I thought it would be a good day to talk about how frozen food could help keep some food out of the landfill.
I apologize for the three year old pie chart from the EPA, but I was unable to locate a more recent one. I don’t think much has changed in the past few years. You can see that food makes up close to a quarter of the material found in landfills. Food, that if kept out of the landfills would greatly decrease our greenhouse gas emissions and instead create fertile soil.
As much as I would love to talk about composting and all the wonderful benefits, today’s post is about frozen foods. So, I thought I would discuss how freezing food can prolong the life of your food and even keep single use plastic out of your home.
This post could easily become very lengthy, but I’m just going to share what my family has done when it comes to freezing our food.
- The kids freeze fruit to use in smoothies (in our reusable storage bags) . They have found that thawing out frozen fruit to eat is not ideal. However, taking the frozen fruit and combining it with their yogurt and other ingredients makes for the perfect smoothie.
- The cook in the house (not me) has a tendency to make large quantities of food, especially when it comes to soups and chili. I believe this is the result of being a firehouse cook for numerous years. Regardless, I found us throwing left overs away after it had been sitting in the refrigerator after a week. I mean, there’s only so much chili one person can eat in a week. I make sure to freeze the left overs (in our glass containers). There are definitely foods that freeze better than others. Chili and soups are two of the better ones.
- We have been making our own guacamole and plan to start making our own salsa and hummus. All three of these chip companions are much loved in our house. Unfortunately, they are all packaged in plastic containers when purchased at the store. By making them at home, we eliminate the need for the single use plastic. We can say the guacamole freezes well. Haven’t yet tried the salsa or hummus.
Fresh food is defiantly more popular, but its sibling, frozen food, shouldn’t be underestimated. There are plenty of positive benefits that frozen food provides. We just need to be open to the idea.
Tomorrow, the power of plants.
365 Ways to Save the Planet 