I forget sometimes how out of the mainstream my family is, until I start to count the things we eat that other people throw away, or that are completely unknown to most – they don’t even realize such an item exists!
When I count the things that other people eat that I barely if at all count as food, the distance between the Kimballs and your average American eater gets far greater.
In today’s Life Your Way post, I’m sharing a super quick "how-to" on saving three different food items – and eating them – that most people would just throw away.
Just don’t eat them out of the garbage for real if someone has already tossed it. Even that is a little too far for me! 
From the post:
I’m always very proud of the small amount of trash our family produces in a week and wish we could have even less recycling, but packaging continues to come into our house, grrr…
I’ve written often here on the subjects of reusing, recycling, and avoiding disposables…so I’ve already covered the fact that your school can sign up to reclaim strange items like cheese wrappers, foil drink pouches, and even personal product waste like makeup tubes via Terracycle, which my son loved helping with. And we’ve discussed how to save things like orange peels and potato skins from the garbage and put them to good use instead. (My kids can never decide if they like our homemade potato salad better or the “potato crispies” we get from the skins!)
In fact, I shared 200 ways to practice the 3Rs to save the earth last year and then another very specific 101 things you can reuse instead of recycle this year.
You’d think I’d be out of ideas.
But when I was asked what to do with bacon grease and some other things that people felt guilty about throwing away (you can’t compost meat products), I knew I had to share just a few more ideas.
See if you can guess why strawberries are the top photo in today’s post – and then click over to see if you’re right! Hit me with questions in the comments there if you have any or share ideas of your own to reclaim food that other people don’t eat…
I get asked all the time how I remember to use things like half a can of tomato sauce, the rest of the green onions that I bought for one recipe, or even leftovers that have already been used at two meals.
Two answers: My freezer and meal planning. One of KS’s July sponsors, Plan to Eat, definitely deserves a shoutout anytime we’re talking about saving money on groceries, great meal planning, and avoiding waste.
Meal planning in general is simple with PTE’s online interface, and if you need to "use something up" before it goes bad, you can always search the KS group over there for recipes to plan from a field of over 100,000 strong, all added by KS readers – which means you’re far more likely to find a dish with real food ingredients than when you run a regular Google search or check major recipe sites.
Huge thanks to Plan to Eat for continuing to help support the content here at Kitchen Stewardship®
Katie Kimball, CSME is a trusted educator and author of 8 real food cookbooks. She is passionate about researching natural remedies and making healthy cooking easier for busy families. She’s been featured on media outlets like ABC, NBC and First for Women magazine as well as contributing regularly on the FOX Network. 
A mom of 4 kids from Michigan, she is a Certified Stress Mastery Educator and member of the American Institute of Stress.
Emily via Facebook says
Steam sweet potato leaves are yummy together with fried fish
Shannon via Facebook says
Paul Wentworth you will like her. She hates bringing packing into her house too. Has lots of links you may like.
via Facebook says
Emily Carter Erickson I know you don’t have to be super careful when cutting broccoli, but those huge cauliflower leaves…I don’t know. Do you think they’d taste good in anything? Now I’m curious…who knows this one (Dr. Google?) 😉
via Facebook says
Do you mean you can eat sweet potato leaves Mollyann Hesser?? That’s a new one for me, awesome sauce!!
via Facebook says
Debbe Eubanks A little lemon will cut bitterness in a green smoothie actually, and Laurie at Common Sense Homesteading has a whole post on dandelions! Hopefully she’ll see this and help you find it, or search here: http://www.commonsensehome.com/
via Facebook says
Andrea Schmidt Herold did you see that Tanya would love the radish green top recipe if there’s a link online?
Emily via Facebook says
Are broccoli and cauliflower leaves edible?
Mollyann via Facebook says
Carrot tops, hollyhock leaves and sweet potato leaves to my list this year.
Debbe via Facebook says
I’ve read the whole dandelion is edible. Can you share a recipe (how much water, how much and what part of dandelions, how long to steep?) and step-by-step how-to for dandelion tea and other things you can make with dandelion? My teas always come out so bitter, no matter what kind. Green smoothies, too. :/
Tanya via Facebook says
Andrea…may I have that recipe?
Priscilla via Facebook says
I learned about using strawberry tops in smoothies, at a BlendTec demo at Sam’s Club. Using the whole strawberry with the green top, is a time saver, I like it!
Andrea via Facebook says
The kids and I like the soup I make from radish green tops! (Sometimes the soup is made from whole radishes)
Tiffany via Facebook says
My hubby eats apple cores and seeds (I haven’t read the post yet, let’s see if that’s one of them :-))
Caitlin via Facebook says
you know you can also eat dandelions(sp) i dig up the roots and make coffee and tea with them! So yummy and lots of health benifits.
via Facebook says
I guessed vegetable scraps to go in stock, but I had no idea about the tops of strawberries!