5 Creative Ways to Cut Back on Food Waste

QOTD: Share some tips with us on how you work to decrease the amount of food waste in the trashcan! 

One of my biggest pet peeves is food waste. Throwing away leftovers and sour milk makes me cringe, and I can't help but think about how this extra trash could have been minimized if only the food had been consumed perhaps a day or two earlier. That's a lot of money wasted. Not to mention the kids starving in third world countries and the damage being done to the environment. 

Obviously food waste can't be completely avoided, but there are several ways to make sure your trash can isn't smelling of rotten bananas and days-old chow mein at the end of the week. Here are some tips that I've learned during my one-and-a-half years as a college student so far: 

1. Look in the fridge every morning. Peer around to see if there are any leftovers or almost-empty cartons of milk that you could down for breakfast or pack up for a quick lunch. 

2. Actually use your fridge. I used to make the mistake of leaving leftovers or other food out, thinking that I would eat it later for a snack. Eight times out of ten, I didn't. I became too immersed in my homework (it happens) or something else came up or I just simply forgot--which left that sad Panera sandwich sitting all by itself for hours. Then when I came back from whatever I was doing, I had no choice but to throw it out. Now, I put food into the fridge no matter what I say I plan on doing. 

3. Only buy as much as you can eat. I have a bad habit of spending too much money on too much food. I listen to my stomach more than I reason, and in the end I'm not realistic about how big it (my stomach) really is. My goal for the next couple of months is learn how to estimate correctly the amount of food I can consume in one sitting and apply that to my food purchases. 

4. Split a meal with a friend. There's this great Indian eatery in our dining hall that serves the most delicious chicken curry combo. Only problem is, the serving is huge! It comes with two sides, naan and even rice; the price of each combo is a whopping $8.50. But these combos are just too good to pass. So I've made a habit of splitting the combo with a friend and it works out great--I get to save money and save food but still savor the spicy goodness of Sitar. 

5. Low on a lot of basic ingredients? Mix 'em all together! Yesterday, I was roaming around my kitchen for something to eat for lunch and decided on macaroni and cheese (my all-time favorite food, you know!). Normally I just melt some butter and Velveeta with the noodles, but it turned out I had a lot of random foods--like an almost-empty container of butter and three slices of honey ham left--that I needed to finish off. So I got creative. 

Ingredients: Butter, Velveeta cheese, Vermont white cheddar cheese, whole milk, Boar's Head honey ham, and macaroni noodles. 

The end result? A load of empty containers/boxes/bags and pure cheesy, buttery, ham-y heaven. 

Yes, I do eat macaroni and cheese with garlic salt!

5 Creative Ways to Cut Back on Food Waste

Tweet

The Best of The Blog in 2010 + Rate & Review TRA Poll

Question of the Day: What are you doing to celebrate New Year's Day? Did you count down and watch the ball drop on television?

I've compiled a list of the blog's ten best entries in the year 2010! Feel free to share your own favorite blog post of TRA in comments below!

From oldest to newest....

1) Crystal City

2) Alice in Wonderland Movie Review

3) Give Me Your Titles

4) Go Green!

5) China 2010 Scrapbook: Scenery

6) Abstract Art & Its Impact on the Human Mind

7) Compromising With Your Main Character

8) "How Dumbledore REALLY Died" Mad Lib Contest + Winner!

9) Reading Between the Lines

10) Five Steps to a Resolution You'll Stick With

Rate & Review TRA Poll

After blogging for a year, I still can't get enough of it! I am slowly beginning to expand this blog by adding more features and links that I hope you will find beneficial and helpful for you.

Here's your chance to let me know how I'm doing! It would be wonderful if you could take a few minutes to participate in this poll. It would definitely help me out and let me see what I can add in future posts to make TRA blog for the better.

What would you like to see more of on TRA?

• Photography and visual elements
• more about TRA, who she is, and personal entries
• writing advice and literary works
• tutorials and how-to posts
• bits and pieces of randomness

Created on Jan 1, 2011

View Results

In addition, please let me know:

1) What would you like to see less of, if anything?

2) Are there any particular topics (recent current events, debatable politics, gardening, the writing process, etc.) you'd like me to write about in future posts?

3) How do you like the layout? Should I change it? If so, how?

4) Any specific resources, links, or non-literary things (like polls and quizzes) you'd like me to add?

5) Any suggestions or overall comments

I would truly appreciate your feedback! The poll will be up for a month so you can have a while to make your decision. Thanks so much for being such a loyal follower/reader! Happy New Year!

The Best of The Blog in 2010 + Rate & Review TRA Poll

Tweet

5 Steps To a Resolution You'll Stick With

Question of the Day: What is your favorite holiday song? Among my favorites are Last Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, and Do You Hear What I Hear.

Now that the Christmas season is over, it is almost time to count down.....2011 is almost here! Do you have a New Year's Resolution? Or are you still trying to think of a goal that you can, well, actually commit to? Making a resolution is hard, and sticking to it is even harder.

Personally, I love New Year's resolutions. What better way to begin a brand new year than with a newfound determination to improve yourself for the better as a person? I've listed five steps that I've used for the past few years that are guaranteed to help you choose a resolution that is both bold and possible.

1) Want V.S. Need...or Want & Need? Be sure to make a resolution that is both pragmatic and desirable. If you want to start growing a vegetable patch but you don't like gardening, then what's the point? The best resolution will give you material benefits as well as personal happiness. Besides, you'll be much more likely to stick with a goal that you personally enjoy working towards as opposed to a goal that you don't.

2) Be Realistic. You want to write, edit, AND publish a book in a single year? My dear friend, you have some fierce ambitions! Although I admire your fervor, it takes A LOT of work to do each of those things...either you will have a mental breakdown by August from trying to finish your book or you'll lose steam fast. Your resolution needs to be realistic and attainable. Why not aim to only complete a book? Believe me, that's already difficult as it is! If you are a writing whiz-gizmo, you can start editing towards the end of the year. If you're feeling particularly bold, you could also start researching the publishing industry and weighing your options (self-publishing versus a publisher). But don't get too greedy with your goals without considering the work that must be done to reach them.

3) Be Specific. If you decide to "be healthier," what exactly does that mean? Do you want to lose weight, start a daily exercise routine, eat organic food, or what? You can take action in so many different ways in order to "be healthier," but if you try to focus on too many smaller goals you will lose sight of everything because it will simply be too much.

4) Make a Plan. Let's say your goal for 2011 is to "be healthier by avoiding processed foods and cooking with fresh, organic products." The point of the resolution is to "be healthier." How will you do that? By "avoiding processed foods and cooking with fresh, organic products." But a year is pretty long, and after a while it's way too easy to simply...give up. By using month-by-month progress check-ups, you can make sure that you stick with your resolution. If you realize you're losing steam by April or May, you can re-motivate yourself and gear up to start again full blast when June comes around. For each month, add a new mini goal to your resolution. For instance, in January you may start out easy by simply reading food labels when you go to the grocery store. Then in February, perhaps you'll start to plan out what vegetables you want to grow in your backyard. By March, you can start planting! Keep a notebook to keep track of your progress and to-do's.

5) Share It. There's nothing better than sharing your resolution with a good friend who has a similar goal in mind. However, it's best if your friend has a resolution that is at least slightly different from yours; otherwise, a friendly partnership may become a major competition. What's great about working towards a resolution together is that you're able to provide each other with healthy doses of moral support, constant motivation, and positive peer pressure. Plus, it will bring your friendship up to a whole new level that is even more meaningful and enjoyable than it was before.

5 Steps To a Resolution You'll Stick With

Tweet

5 Ways to Find a Summer In the Midst of Winter

Question of the Day: What's the weather like where you are?

Within the last couple of posts, I mentioned a significant quote:

"In the midst of winter, I found within me an invincible summer."

--Albert Camus

As December continues on, we will all become deeply entrenched within the chill of winter and the weather will get colder by the day. Studies have shown that people's moods tend to go downhill during the winter season, possibly because of the absence of sunlight and because the days become shorter and darker more quickly. If you ever find yourself feeling down in the dumps, here are a few ways to get back in high spirits:

1) Take a walk. Now it may be that the last thing you want to do is get yourself in the freezing cold just to stroll around the neighborhood or the park. But by sitting at home by the fireplace, you're bound to feel cooped up and listless. Perhaps you'll even welcome that bit of chill, and a simple glance at the snow outside will have you smiling once again.

2) Bake some cookies. Sometimes boredom gives rise to depression and feelings of dullness, and all you need is a bit of that chocolate chip or spicy gingerbread to perk up your senses and get you back into the holiday mood!

3) Do something for yourself. Whether it's taking a relaxing bath, playing tennis at the local gym, or writing in your journal. Taking some time to do something special on your own will definitely make you feel more

4) After you finish reading this post, get off the Internet and do some hands-on activities. Constantly looking at the screen (whether it be television, Wii games, or Facebook stalking) tends to depress the brain and make us less reactive, so make some arts and crafts or go play with your pets.

5) Play an instrument or listen to some soothing tunes. Music always works wonders. No matter if I am in the need for inspiration while writing my WIP, a lift in my mood, or something to jam and dance to, music is a must-have in some shape or form (Pandora/iPod/Radio, anybody?).

~~~

On Saturday, it snowed. =) My backyard became a total winter wonderland, and only today did the snow begin melting. But here is the miraculous thing...all of my lovely edible plants propped up on the fence are still in spectacular condition!

If that's not the perfect example of a small garden of summer in the midst of a cool winter, I don't know what is!!

~TRA

5 Ways to Find a Summer In the Midst of Winter

Tweet

Go Green!

Question of the Day: If you could switch lives with one living creature (animal, plant, single prokaryote, etc.) for one day, what would you choose to be?

Everyday, humans do not realize how influential they are on the environment. I am not just talking about plants, but everything--from animals to small critters and insects to bodies of water to cherry blossom trees to simply the atmosphere.

Nature gives us so many gifts and have been for centuries: oxygen, medicinal cures, food, shelter, land to live on, and overall simply peace. Without nature and our environment, life and survival would not exist.

I have compiled a short list of my favorite simple ways to help recycle, prevent pollution, and save the environment. They go below using and buying your average recycling bins and biodegradable products...and when I say "below" I mean they take even less time and are almost effortless. When you first read, these things seem so obvious that it's silly to put them up here, but you would be surprised by how few take these actions.

If each person did a little good to help reduce our ecological footprint on Earth, then we can all give back to the nature that has helped us for so long.

Four Great Ways to Go Green

1) Reuse paper for printing. I admit that I use a lot paper. A lot. As a high schooler, there are days in which I am assigned research papers and other homework that involve typing and printing. As a writer, I constantly print and reprint rough drafts and page drafts that must be edited. Where do they go after they have been proofread and all errors have been corrected? The trashcan, of course. Unfortunately, half of all sheets of paper are unused; it is only too common for people to use one side of a sheet of paper and then toss it out. Whenever possible, I take these half-used pieces of paper and pile them up beside my printer at home. There is a lot of stuff that I DO NOT need to turn in, such as monthly to-do lists, that I end up printing on the other sides of these papers. Why use so much paper, throw them away and then use new sheets of paper when the other sides of the first batch of papers are still perfectly good? I hope that wasn't confusing. :3 So yeah, keep your one-sided papers by the printer and remember to USE THEM for unofficial, personal documents that must be printed.

2) Reuse your mail. Good old snail mail uses up a lot of paper. It really does. With catalogs, magazines, envelopes, newspapers, god-awful bills, and other incoming mail entering people's mailboxes everyday, there is a tremendous build-up of paper...and at least half of it ends up going into the trash. There is SO much that can be done with mail, though! I save my unwanted mail and torn envelopes and do scratch work/homework on them. It's surprising how well unwanted mail serves as scratch paper. You'll feel really good about yourself when you do that instead of using perfectly good notebook paper to do quick calculations for grading papers or for filling out monthly bills on. Another way to reuse mail is for mealtimes. You know those takeout Pizza Hut chicken wings that you always get but never find a place to throw the bones? That's when your unused mail can come in handy. You can save a lot of napkins by simply using the used paper as a surface to pile up the bones, and then simply throw the paper and bones away when you're done.

3) Reuse your fish water. It is imperative that you change the water of your fish tank (if you have one, that is) at least once a week. Even if you have a filter that pumps water and constantly traps food and dirty particles, the best way to keep your fish living in a clean environment if you wash the tank out often. BUT...instead of throwing out the dirty water, you can easily use it for another chore--watering plants! Sounds ridiculous, but it's true: because fish water contains feces and other bits of, erm, fish stuff in there, the water is actually very healthy and nutritious for plants. I've been using fish water for my orchid and it has bloomed twice in a very short amount of time. I also used fish water to revive my mother's Jasmine plant. This is a great way to prevent from wasting water and to feed your plant with a fertilizing water!

4) Plant plants. One of the best ways to thank nature is to simply make more of it! There are loads of different types of flower seeds and vegetable seeds that you can buy for cheap prices. You can either buy them at the local grocery stores or online. If you have a busy schedule, buy some plant seeds that don't require too much attention (must be watered daily, etc.), or are very independent if left outside in the natural environment. Another neat way to "plant plants" is to buy exotic species if you ever go out of the country; I went to Hawai'i a few years back and bought some packages of the following plants: Birds of Paradise, Coconut Tree, Kona Coffee, and Macadamia Nut! There is one more but I can't quite remember what it is called. =/ Anywho, planting plants yourselves will help nature's cycle of life flourish and add just a little more beauty to the world. Plus, it's a really peaceful hobby and helps relieve stress. More power to plants!

Thank you for reading!

~TRA


*These photos were taken by me, Wendy, and therefore belong to me.

P.S. I apologize for any corniness or cheesiness in this blog post. :P I promise my next post will not be about nature, haha.

Go Green!

Tweet