10 Hacks To Reduce Your Kitchen Waste
Dumping all the kitchen waste and feeling bad? Wasting of food is a global problem, per statistics Americans waste approximately one hundred pounds of food per household which means that around 30 – 40 % of American food goes to the dump.
Here we have some easy hacks that can help you reduce your daily kitchen waste!
• Keep greens fresh
Many of us throw out salad greens because they do not remain fresh for long. You can keep greens fresh for longer by storing them in a plastic bag. When you put them in blow into the plastic bag then seal it. The carbon dioxide keeps them fresher.
• Prevent browning of avocados
You can prevent your avocados from turning brown after cutting by storing them with a cut onion. The presence of sulfur in onion keeps the avocado fresh and keeps them from turning brown.
• Use your lemon fully
Most of us squeeze lemon with our hands, leaving a lot of lemon juice still inside the lemon. To get the most efficient use of lemon, use tongs to squeeze it. Using tongs puts more force on the lemon squeezing all the juice out of it. Also put the lemon in the microwave or in hot water for 10 seconds before squeezing to get more juice. You can use your leftover lemon at this point for scrubbing your sink, sprinkle salt on it and scrub away! This works great and smells wonderful too!
• Get more familiar with eggs
If you cannot differentiate between fresh and not so fresh eggs, we have a trick for you. Take a bowl full of water and place your eggs in it, the fresh eggs will sink while older ones float.
• Paper home for onions
To keep onions and garlic from sprouting store them in a paper bag with holes in it. This can be done with any food in the onion family, it keeps them fresh for months.
• Retain the softness of brown sugar
Hardening of brown sugar is the biggest cause of wasting it. The next time your brown sugar gets hard and you think of throwing it out add a few marshmallows or fresh bread to it and seal the container tightly. It will make the hardened sugar supple again and ready for use.
• Fully use your butter
The best way to use your butter fully is to place their empty wrappers in the freezer. You can use the small amount of butter left on them for greasing pans.
• Stop potato sprouting
Potato sprouting is common cause of waste. To prevent potatoes sprouting store them with apples. Apples release ethylene gas which helps preserve potatoes.
• Catalyze pineapple ripening
When you store pineapple cut off the top leaves and store it upside down. This helps it ripen faster by forcing the sugars to flow towards the top.
• Make frozen herbal butter
This is quite good, place herbs into an ice tray then add butter to each one and place in the freezer. Fresh herbs spoil quickly but mix well with butter. Once frozen they are great for cooking.
Bonus tip: If you have vegetables that are going bad quickly place them all together in a freezer bag and save for soup stock at a later date. Leftover baked potatoes, celery, broccoli, and almost anything can be easily thrown into scrambled eggs.
