Tips on how to use your food scraps and save them from a landfill

Joel Hitchens

We all know that one of the best ways to prevent your food waste and clippings from entering a landfill is by composting them. However, for some people composting is untenable given their living arrangements, and they are left with no choice but to throw out their food scraps. We have talked about different ways to cut down your food waste, but what about the scraps from cooking that you can’t eat? I wanted to list a few different things you can do with some of your food scraps.

I realized that a post like this would be useful after I went to a market last week to buy herbs. I needed rosemary and parsley for a bean salad recipe I was making. I only needed a couple teaspoons of chopped rosemary and a cup of chopped parsley, but unfortunately the smallest amounts of rosemary or parsley available were a lot more than I needed. Once I had made the salad, I still had almost all the rosemary and over half the parsley left over. Rather than throw it away or let it go bad, telling myself that I would use it in something. I decided to look into drying methods. This search ended up sending me down a bit of a rabbit hole (but with less hookah smoking caterpillars.)

I’ve assembled a short list of some of the best ideas I saw for using different food scraps, but I know I’m only scratching the surface! I would love to hear different ideas from all of you, or at least get you thinking about the different uses that you might find for scraps you would normally throw away.

Let’s start with herbs. The easiest method of using excess herbs is to dry them out so you can use them later in cooking. There are several different methods for drying out herbs including air drying, dehydrating, oven drying, or microwaving. So long as you have the patience, I would most recommend air drying. Air drying can be used for most herbs you will be using and is the most intuitive. It doesn’t require any extra equipment either, just a well ventilated room between 60-80ºF. There are a few different ways to air dry herbs, so I would recommend checking them out first and finding one that works the best for your situation. The biggest pro of drying your own herbs is that you will no longer have to be throwing out sad herbs from your fridge or buy expensive dried herbs from the store! If you get your own spice containers too, dried herbs could be great for trading on Galora.

I wanted to mention too that rosemary, aside from being dried, can also be used to make tea. Last night I made myself rosemary tea with about a teaspoon of sprigs chopped in half. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I actually really liked it! I had it right before bed too, which was the perfect time for it. 

Next up is fruit peels! Most of us toss out, or immediately compost, the peels of fruits that can’t be eaten such as bananas, grapefruits, or oranges. However there are actually several things you can make with these peels. 

Banana peels, as it turns out, are just as nutritious as the flesh of the fruit, they just don’t taste as nice. This is good news for your plants, as potassium plays an important role in plant growth and is apparently good for repelling aphids. I would recommend using your banana peels to make this banana tea fertilizer. This liquid fertilizer is especially useful for plants in your home, particularly if you grow herbs in the house, as it can be challenging to get them all the nutrients they require. 

Citrus peels like oranges or grapefruit can also be used to make your own bitters for cocktails! These can even be paired with extra herbs you have to make cool combinations like rosemary grapefruit or chamomile orange. I haven’t tried this myself yet, but I have gotten my hands on a few little tinctures so I will be trying it myself next time I have some fresh citrus in the house. I thought this was such a cool and unique way of using food scraps that I had to share it. If you aren’t a drinker though, you can also use citrus peels to make dried zests for baking or tea. Looking at dried orange zest online, it can be super expensive, so making it yourself would be a great way to save money. And once again, bitters or dried zests would be awesome currency in our barter economy on Galora!

On the topic of fruits, let’s talk quickly about strawberry tops. Strawberries are the third most consumed fruit in the US. I have loved strawberries since I picked them from my backyard garden as a kid, but I had never seriously considered using the tops and the leaves before today. I’m guessing that most of us have been wasting ¼ of the fruit this whole time! Strawberry tops can be used to flavor water or vinegar. They can also be dropped into smoothies and the  leaves can be used for tea. Similarly to the orange zest, if you are looking to buy dried strawberry leaves they can be quite pricey. If you are interested in making your own herbal tea though, I would definitely start plucking the leaves off your strawberries instead of throwing them out.

Let me know if you use any of the ideas I’ve listed here, and tell me how it goes! I would also love to hear of any ways you come up with to use food scraps that are typically thrown out. I’m sure there are hundreds more out there. As always you can send me a message at Ahitchens, or leave a comment below.

Photo by Lisa Hobbs