Have you ever thought about how much work it takes before fruits and vegetables from farms and orchards reach your kitchen? The whole process needs manpower and costs a lot of money, but joining a community garden will help you eliminate the middle man.

Joining community gardens offers many benefits, some of which include teaching you how to be self-sufficient, reducing food waste and giving you access to fresh produce. What’s not to love about community gardens?

Ending food waste one community garden at a time

Every year, tons of perfectly edible food goes to waste just because they’re considered ugly. But what do looks have to do with how food tastes?

At least 20 percent of produce is thrown away because they look odd. Before fruits and vegetables are repackaged and delivered to stores, they can get rejected because they have unusual colors, odd shapes or blemishes on the peel – which doesn’t even get eaten!

Can you imagine? About one in five fruits and vegetables are sent to landfills when they’re edible, if not perfect-looking.

While this doesn’t make sense to you, grocery stores only purchase fresh produce that looks picture-perfect because most consumers believe that “ugly” food isn’t worth a second look.

But how can community gardens help end food waste?

Joining a community garden means you’ll be working with other people who understand that ugly food is still edible. These people will know that just because a fruit or vegetable has an odd shape or a few blemishes doesn’t mean it can’t be eaten.

Growing your own food in a community garden also helps avoid the issues associated with having to transport produce. When fruits and vegetables are shipped thousands of miles from the farm to the grocery store, you can bet that somewhere along the way food will go to waste. Some of the produce may rot during the long drive or look a little worse for wear, resulting in them being thrown away instead of reaching store shelves.

Talking with the other members of your community garden to get a consensus on what crops to grow also helps cut down on food waste. If no one likes a certain fruit or vegetable, you don’t have to plant it, which in turn helps reduce food waste. Instead, the group can cultivate crops that everyone wants and needs for their daily consumption.

Community gardens don’t just teach you self-sufficiency, which is a crucial skill to have. Joining a group of like-minded people who know the value of ugly produce can help you reduce food waste.

Can’t join a community garden? Here are other ways to reduce food waste

Not everyone can join a community garden. You may be too busy or you might not have one in your neighborhood, but there are plenty of ways to help reduce food waste.

Buy “ugly” produce

Even if you can’t grow your own food, you can ask sellers at your favorite farmer’s market to offer more ugly veggies and that you’ll buy them the next time they’re available.

You can also look for larger-scale companies that offer ugly produce at a discount. Some of these companies only serve select areas, but they might be able to deliver directly to your doorstep. It’s a win for mother nature and your wallet!

Do you shop at independent supermarkets? Ask store owners to stock more ugly produce. Unless stores notice a significant increase in demand, it’s unlikely that they will willingly put up ugly produce for sale.

Have an “Eat me first” section in your fridge

Once you have a designated spot in your refrigerator, things that should be consumed immediately need to be kept in the “eat me first” section. It’s best to choose a spot close to eye level at the front of your refrigerator so it’s the first thing you see when you need ingredients for a dish.

Each time you open your fridge, transfer ingredients that have been sitting a while to the “eat me first” area like bits of leftover ginger, garlic cloves or wedges of lemons and limes.

Have a smoothie bag and a stock bag in your freezer

For this tip, you need to keep two bags in your freezer. A large reusable bag for fruit that will be used to make smoothies, and another bag where you’ll store veggie scraps for stock.

Once you have a smoothie bag in your freezer, you can store fruit that’s getting old but is still edible, meaning nothing with mold and excluding food that’s already rotten and smelly.

Not sure where to start? Include items such as peaches that have gone soft, browning bananas (unpeeled so the skin doesn’t freeze to the fruit) and wrinkly blueberries. When you’re making a fruit smoothie, you won’t even notice the brown spots or wrinkles in leftover fruit.

Vegetable scraps like the cobs, cores, ends, leaves, peels, skins, and stems of the following veggies can go in your stock bag:

• Asparagus
• Carrots
• Celery
• Corn
• Fennel
• Garlic
• Leeks
• Mushrooms
• Onions
• Parsnips
• Potatoes
• Scallions
• Shallots

The list goes on, but you should skip bitter vegetables like broccoli, Brussels sprouts and cabbage.

To make sure you don’t accidentally throw anything away while you’re cooking, keep a clean bowl beside you while you’re chopping veggies. When you have scraps, keep them in the bowl.

When it’s time to clean up, pour the contents of the veggie bowl into your stock bag when you clean up. You can also include neglected, whole veggies that have gone limp or wrinkly. But avoid anything that’s already spoiled or moldy.

Once your smoothie bag or stock bag is full, make a fruit smoothie or vegetable scrap stock for tasty soups and stews.

Ask if your area has a community garden that you can join. Sign up and become self-sufficient as you help end food waste. If you don’t have a community garden or are unable to join one, do your part to reduce food waste by buying ugly produce and using veggie scraps to make soup stock.

Sources:

Outside2Inside.com

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