Avoiding Food Waste

An overripe banana - a sad sight?

I was reading Food and Nutrition magazine (published by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics) and saw an article about how to salvage pantry foods that have seen their best days. I love these kinds of articles as avoiding food waste is a subject I am passionate about. I find it sad that a lot of food is wasted (30% of all food in the world!) while so many people go hungry (1).

Interestingly, fruit and vegetables have the highest wastage rates (up to 45% (1)). This is also my biggest culprit as I often buy too much produce and am sometimes not able to use all of it before it gets too ripe or moldy. Thankfully, this doesn’t always mean the food is unusable.

Sautéing bananas

For example, if I have a few overripe bananas on my hands, I use them to make a yummy dessert, or put them into my oatmeal to provide some much-needed flavor: 

1. A very easy dessert is to sauté bananas in butter or ghee until the sugar in the banana caramelizes, and… that’s it! This is so delicious and the best part is that you don’t need to add any extra sugar. Butter/ghee can be substituted with mild tasting vegetable oil, if so desired.

2. You can also make truly delicious and healthy vegan ice “cream” with ripe bananas. Here is a recipe that we used for a food demo during my internship (2):

Ingredients

2 large ripe frozen bananas - sliced

2 tablespoons cocoa powder (100% pure cacao)

2 tablespoons creamy natural nut butter (almond, cashew or peanut)

½ teaspoon vanilla

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

pinch salt

Preparation

1.       Place all ingredients in a food processor or high-speed blender

2.       Slowly pulse, 15 seconds at a time, until mixture is smooth and creamy, scraping down the sides as you go.  Note: This process may take a couple minutes so be patient.

3.       Serve immediately or freeze in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

3. When making oatmeal, add the overripe banana into the pot or bowl with the oat flakes before starting to heat the porridge. Heat will again caramelize some of the sugar in the banana providing an amazing flavor to a breakfast that can otherwise taste rather bland. I use one banana for 1-2 portions of oatmeal. For other ideas on how to make oatmeal taste great, check out my very first blog: http://kooking1.blogspot.com/2011/09/i-love-oatmeal.html.

I know here in America people don’t really drink buttermilk like they do in Finland, but it is a common ingredient when making pancakes. I’m sure that often there is left-over buttermilk that ends up spoiling and being thrown away (maybe because people here don't drink it?). Well, because buttermilk is fermented and thus already full of healthy bacteria, bad bacteria are not as able to gain a footing there, thereby slowing spoilage. For buttermilk that is not the freshest anymore, but not truly spoiled, my mom bakes it into a cake or a pie. Here is a recipe that is perfect for the fall:

Maustekakku aka Spice cake

Ingredients:

1 ¼ cup (3 dl) buttermilk

7 oz (200 g) melted butter (or non-hydrogenated margarine)

1 tsp baking soda

¾ cup (2 dl) sugar (I used brown sugar)

~ ½ cup (1 dl) maple syrup

2 tsp each: cloves, ground ginger, cardamom

2.5 cups (6 dl) all-purpose flour

Preparation:

1.      Mix dry and wet ingredients separately.

2.      Blend together until flour is barely incorporated.

3.      Bake in a pre-oiled pan for 1 hour, in a 350 F (175 C) oven.

(I like to cheat: I mix the dry ingredients first in the bowl, then add all of the wet ingredients on top of the dry and finally mix together – this is so quick, and produces fewer dirty dishes! I also like to flour the pan with cream of wheat, something my mom always does.)

Spice cake

I made this cake for a potluck recently and it was funny how a person from India chuckled at the name of the cake. They didn't think there was much spice there! Keep in mind that the Finns are not known for using a lot of spices in cooking or baking, so this is a legit a spice cake to us Finns! Feel free to increase the amount of the spices, or even try others, like allspice or nutmeg, in this recipe.

To add some more nutritional value into this cake, one can substitute up to half of the white flour with whole wheat. Some of the sugar can also be substituted with xylitol (though watch out for laxative effects!), or stevia. I also like to use maple syrup or agave syrup if I want ingredients that are less processed. Unfortunately, the flavor does change a bit with each change, which means that some experimentation to find the sweet spot between healthy and tasty may be in order. 

Side note: even though I have aimed to only provide recipes that are healthy in this blog, I am beginning to think that if one wants something sweet, it’s OK if it isn’t the healthiest food – the chances are that if you are eating a sweet that is somewhat healthier, you might feel tempted to eat a lot more of it than what you would if you knew that the sweet item in question had close to no health benefits. Eating more of something that is slightly “more healthy” might just end up giving you the same end result as if you ate less of something less healthy. On top of this, it is likely that the less healthy item is more delicious, and you might even enjoy it more!

Another item that can be salvaged is stale bread (not moldy). It’s amazing how quickly some breads that are so good when they are fresh are not so nice after a day or two! I wrote a blog post about turning these into a sweet breakfast or dessert item: http://kooking1.blogspot.com/2014/09/recycling-food.html.

Finally, a very effective way to reduce and avoid food waste is good planning. Don't buy foods on a whim, and plan your menu and shopping list ahead of time. Sometimes avoiding food waste also means to train your palate to be OK with eating the same food more than once or twice. This one may be tough, but it actually makes you feel like you did a good deed!  

If you have tricks (or treats) to prevent food waste, please share them!

Happy Halloween!

Anna-Kaisa

References:

1.       Key facts on food loss and waste you should know! Retrieved October 30, 2017, from http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/

2.       Chocolate Nutty Butter Banana "Ice Cream". Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center. University of California, San Francisco. Retrieved October 30, 2017, from http://cancer.ucsf.edu/support/crc/recipes/2016/09/12/chocolate-nutty-butter-banana-ice-cream.7876