Eco-Challenge: Generating Zero Food Waste.
For the past few weeks I've been playing along with an eco-sensitive life challenge. The game is simply enough, I'm attempting to avoid wasting any food products for the Summer semester, and indeed, it will likely become a habit that would be beneficial to continue for the rest of my life. It must be noted, however, that I am in many ways setting myself up for failure. I've seen numerous listings suggesting maybe trying to do a zero-waste meal once or twice a week. However, I'm trying to make that happen for all of my meals, every week. Will I fall short of the mark? Most assuredly, I already have on a few occasions. Am I licking all of the pasta sauce out of my bowl after every meal? Certainly not, though I'm attempting to do so with all solid food material.
Maybe I should take a step back. The Genesis of this concept of a highly disciplined eco-challenge began, for me, in August of 2015. Prior to beginning my schooling at George Fox Evangelical Seminary, I had packed up my life from my home in Homer Glen, IL to move out to Oregon, only to find myself homeless for the better part of 3 weeks. Fortunately, an elderly couple had graciously invited me to stay in their home until I could get my rental situation hashed out with my soon-to-be landlord. This couple, Mel and Carol, had led quite a life. They've spent the better portion of their lives traveling. Carol had been the daughter of a Nazarene Minister in Canada who frequently changed parishes, and Mel had entered into the US Military during his college career and toured in service of the country. As they grew, so did their love for travel. This was perhaps made manifest when they had decided to become missionaries in Africa for some several years. Both had been Educators for much of their post-college life, and these skills would be utilized in their missionary work. After a 7 year stint they would return home, and continue to travel recreationally as they continued their careers and entered into retirement. As you might imagine, there two had a lifetime's worth of stories at their disposal.
One thing that I had reckoned strange about the two at first was due, in part, in the manner they ate. When they would cook meals, they cooked sizable portions, which I had assumed was as a generosity and service to me, as the young homeless man living in their midst. They urged me to eat as much as I could, and given my longstanding love-affair with food, I was generally happy to oblige. Mel and Carol, however, would eat fairly moderately, and towards the conclusion of every meal, the sound of silverware scraping glass would permeate the air. I took note that these two would scrape just about every morsel of food that they could onto their fork or into their spoon, no matter how small, to eat. I on the otherhand, felt little shame in leaving a few peas or smatterings of mashed potato on my plate to scrape into the trash afterwards. They never said anything about this, they never gave me any disapproving looks, we simply just appeared to have two different ways of approaching what was on our plates.
After the meal, they would pack up the left overs, careful to preserve every last morsel of food in a tupperware container, and carefully pouring any sauces or liquids into a separate container. Any Ziploc bags that had been used in dry-brining meats would be carefully hand-washed and dried in the sink, and put away for later use, rather than being thrown out. I remember thinking this to be a little extreme. Ziplocs are by their very nature disposable. Could someone genuinely be so frugal that they might spend their time hand-washing disposable bags so that they might save themselves a about $3.50 in a few months?
For awhile I had dismissed this activity as simply a quirk of the two. Everyone does something that would likely be perceived as "strange" by someone else. How these two handled food was their quirk. It wouldn't be until much later when I would begin to consider why they might have developed these habits.
I remembered Mel and Carol telling me that as they had both been pursuing their master's degrees, their "big date night" would happen once a week. This "big date" would be characterized by the fact that they would go to McDonalds on a Friday night, and they would splurge on a burger, french fries, and a cup of soda. Their big splurge for the week would have been somewhere along what are now a roughly $1-2 burger, 99 cent fries, and a 99 cent drink. For all intents and purposes, Mel and Carol spent this portion of their lives fairly poor, and simply found creative solutions to a date within their means.
Mel and Carol weren't always poor though, they certainly weren't anymore. As a middle school teacher and a college professor, they were considerably Middle-Class, as their home and car would indicate, and by virtue of the fact that over their lifetime they had put aside enough to retire. It would later dawn on me that much of their eating habits may have been developed during their 7 year stint in Africa.
Their stories of Africa generally contained an overwhelming sense of poverty and some inherent danger, as one might expect in Nairobi, Kenya. I would imagine, although I am not well versed in third-world poverty or African culture, that their lives among the Third World poor have greatly altered the way they see food. It likely would not be something that they see fitting enough to merely toss that which has become a conglomeration of mixed odds and ends, but rather, its importance might very well be heightened due to the lack of immediate availability and abundance.
As I began to consider these things, I have begun to find their behavior not so much as something strange, but rather something admirable. And so, as I continue my fellowship with Mel and Carol, I hope to begin to emulate some of those qualities which I find to be admirable, along with their sensitive method of consumption. And while my alteration of how I approach the odds and ends on my plate will not save the world, I hope that it might instill in me a more constant line of attention to the reality of the distinction between the "haves" and the "have-nots" in the world, helping me to aspire to not only learn from those who are more impoverished than myself, but to also instill in me a sense of communion with those who have substantially less, so that I might take the resolution of their day-to-day issues ever more into my own hands.
Maybe I should take a step back. The Genesis of this concept of a highly disciplined eco-challenge began, for me, in August of 2015. Prior to beginning my schooling at George Fox Evangelical Seminary, I had packed up my life from my home in Homer Glen, IL to move out to Oregon, only to find myself homeless for the better part of 3 weeks. Fortunately, an elderly couple had graciously invited me to stay in their home until I could get my rental situation hashed out with my soon-to-be landlord. This couple, Mel and Carol, had led quite a life. They've spent the better portion of their lives traveling. Carol had been the daughter of a Nazarene Minister in Canada who frequently changed parishes, and Mel had entered into the US Military during his college career and toured in service of the country. As they grew, so did their love for travel. This was perhaps made manifest when they had decided to become missionaries in Africa for some several years. Both had been Educators for much of their post-college life, and these skills would be utilized in their missionary work. After a 7 year stint they would return home, and continue to travel recreationally as they continued their careers and entered into retirement. As you might imagine, there two had a lifetime's worth of stories at their disposal.
One thing that I had reckoned strange about the two at first was due, in part, in the manner they ate. When they would cook meals, they cooked sizable portions, which I had assumed was as a generosity and service to me, as the young homeless man living in their midst. They urged me to eat as much as I could, and given my longstanding love-affair with food, I was generally happy to oblige. Mel and Carol, however, would eat fairly moderately, and towards the conclusion of every meal, the sound of silverware scraping glass would permeate the air. I took note that these two would scrape just about every morsel of food that they could onto their fork or into their spoon, no matter how small, to eat. I on the otherhand, felt little shame in leaving a few peas or smatterings of mashed potato on my plate to scrape into the trash afterwards. They never said anything about this, they never gave me any disapproving looks, we simply just appeared to have two different ways of approaching what was on our plates.
After the meal, they would pack up the left overs, careful to preserve every last morsel of food in a tupperware container, and carefully pouring any sauces or liquids into a separate container. Any Ziploc bags that had been used in dry-brining meats would be carefully hand-washed and dried in the sink, and put away for later use, rather than being thrown out. I remember thinking this to be a little extreme. Ziplocs are by their very nature disposable. Could someone genuinely be so frugal that they might spend their time hand-washing disposable bags so that they might save themselves a about $3.50 in a few months?
For awhile I had dismissed this activity as simply a quirk of the two. Everyone does something that would likely be perceived as "strange" by someone else. How these two handled food was their quirk. It wouldn't be until much later when I would begin to consider why they might have developed these habits.
I remembered Mel and Carol telling me that as they had both been pursuing their master's degrees, their "big date night" would happen once a week. This "big date" would be characterized by the fact that they would go to McDonalds on a Friday night, and they would splurge on a burger, french fries, and a cup of soda. Their big splurge for the week would have been somewhere along what are now a roughly $1-2 burger, 99 cent fries, and a 99 cent drink. For all intents and purposes, Mel and Carol spent this portion of their lives fairly poor, and simply found creative solutions to a date within their means.
Mel and Carol weren't always poor though, they certainly weren't anymore. As a middle school teacher and a college professor, they were considerably Middle-Class, as their home and car would indicate, and by virtue of the fact that over their lifetime they had put aside enough to retire. It would later dawn on me that much of their eating habits may have been developed during their 7 year stint in Africa.
Their stories of Africa generally contained an overwhelming sense of poverty and some inherent danger, as one might expect in Nairobi, Kenya. I would imagine, although I am not well versed in third-world poverty or African culture, that their lives among the Third World poor have greatly altered the way they see food. It likely would not be something that they see fitting enough to merely toss that which has become a conglomeration of mixed odds and ends, but rather, its importance might very well be heightened due to the lack of immediate availability and abundance.
As I began to consider these things, I have begun to find their behavior not so much as something strange, but rather something admirable. And so, as I continue my fellowship with Mel and Carol, I hope to begin to emulate some of those qualities which I find to be admirable, along with their sensitive method of consumption. And while my alteration of how I approach the odds and ends on my plate will not save the world, I hope that it might instill in me a more constant line of attention to the reality of the distinction between the "haves" and the "have-nots" in the world, helping me to aspire to not only learn from those who are more impoverished than myself, but to also instill in me a sense of communion with those who have substantially less, so that I might take the resolution of their day-to-day issues ever more into my own hands.
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