Enjoy Thanksgiving feast with less waste
Tips to save food, money and planet
Alongside the turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and pie, Americans will create a massive amount of food waste this Thanksgiving.
In fact, about 200 million pounds of turkey meat alone are thrown out during Thanksgiving week. That’s not just a sacrifice on the part of the turkey, it’s also a waste of the water and energy it took to get that bird from the farm to our plates.
According to the National Resources Defense Council, the energy wasted is enough for the entire population of Jacksonville — 892,062, including kids — to drive separate cars from their homes to San Francisco.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Yvette Cabrera, NRDC’s deputy director in charge of food waste policy, offers some simple ways to cut down, or even eliminate, the excess.
■ First, there’s an online food portion calculator (savethefood.com/guestimator) to figure out how much food you need to cook for your guests. It includes main dishes, side dishes and desserts.
■ Ask guests to bring their own “doggy bag” containers. You won’t produce the extra trash of plastic bags or aluminum foil, and you won’t risk never seeing your Tupperware again. Besides, most guests appreciate you sharing the bounty.
■ Don’t peel most vegetables. Aside from onion skins, most vegetables — and especially potatoes — have outer layers that are loaded with nutrients and often add flavor. Just give them a good scrub.
■ Embrace leftovers with creativity. Traditional turkey soup is a natural, but Cabrera suggests such dishes as turkey pozole — a spicy, tomato-based soup — and the traditional Mexican dish of chilaquiles (normally tortillas, green or red salsa, pulled chicken, cheese and refried beans) with turkey replacing the chicken. For that matter, consider turkey chili, turkey tacos and turkey pizza, too.
And stuffing shaped into patties and reheated are a good breakfast alternative to hash browns.
■ Freeze instead of toss. Cabrera says just about anything can be frozen — not just turkey. Gravy, potatoes, green beans, cranberries and pie will probably seem inviting two weeks down the road, when the Thanksgiving binge has worn off and you need sustenance after a long day of work (or Christmas shopping). For advice on freezing, see savethefood.com/articles/ the-art-of-freezing.
■ Sick of turkey? Your dogs aren’t. It might teach them bad manners to feed them scraps from the table, but you can stir up a nutritious mix of turkey, sweet potatoes, green beans and brown rice — the ingredients in some high-end commercial dog foods. Be sure there are no bones, a minimum of skin and absolutely no onions, which can be toxic to dogs and cats.
■ Finally, though it is blasphemy to some, there are more earth- (and fowl-) friendly options than turkey. If you’re game, consider a main course of, say, baked polenta with mushrooms or ricotta-and-fontina stuffed shells with fennel and radicchio (both recipes are available at foodandwine.com). Just don’t tell the dogs they’re not getting turkey leftovers.