Nothing Goes to Waste

Last week’s episode of “Down on the Farm” focused on reworking or upcycling objects to keep them useful—even beautiful—and out of the landfill. This time, let’s explore this same theory but applied to food.

So much food in our country is wasted, it’s staggering. Half the food we grow in America is thrown out before it reaches any home, restaurant, or cafeteria, and foodservice is notorious for throwing out quantities of unused or outdated product as well. As a family that dedicates our life to raising and growing foods with care and compassion, these figures are heartbreaking, and we do everything we can within our own processes to find ways to avoid such waste.

Food is energy and keeping energy in the loop not only avoids waste but also can serve to increase the health of the animals, plants, and land in our care. This includes foods we, as people, may not want to eat.

When harvesting in our aquaponics greenhouse, I keep a bin nearby for plant scraps. Anything that is not going inside to be bagged for our members or sale goes into the bin, which is then taken to our happy, hungry Kunekune pigs. They also adore what’s left of the aquaponics tilapia fish after they are filleted, consuming every bit of protein and calcium that otherwise would have been thrown out. They love the diversity this adds to their diet, just as much as they relish the piles of garden weeds we bring them in the summer—transforming these otherwise cast-aside elements into delicious pork and fertile ground for growing future gardens.

Pigs are perfect up-cyclers of food waste, but we can’t feed them meats other than the fish leftovers, so what happens to those mystery packages at the bottom of the chest freezer? That’s where the other great barnyard recyclers come in—chickens.

Chickens are naturally omnivorous, enjoying their fill of bugs and worms in the grassy season, but they can feel starved of this resource in wintertime. They take out their frustration on each other, pecking and sometimes even killing one another. When our animals go to the butcher, we save organ meats and ground fat for our chickens to supplement their extra energy needs during the cold months, and they adore these additions to their diet.

But this has been a cold winter, and all those organ meats and blocks of fat are gone. Recently, we’ve been making a concerted effort to reorganize chest and walk-in freezers, and in the process we’ve discovered some treasures for the chickens. A chest or walk-in freezer can be a bit like an archaeological site. There are the new layers that you’re familiar with, but the deeper you go the farther back in time you travel, and you discover things you had no idea were even there. Literally! Sometimes this yields treasure (ooh look, let’s have that for dinner tomorrow!), and sometimes it yields trouble (oh dear, that’s way past it’s prime, now isn’t it).

Another freezer archaeology find was three boxes of old…very old…lamb ribs. It had seemed like a good idea to make them at the time, but they had proved a rather fatty and not very meaty cut on a sheep. Now, we turn that meat into different products, and the old ribs had sat in the back of the freezer, dejected and unutilized. It was time to transform them into delicious, golden-yolked eggs!

Through the winter, we keep adding bedding to the coop—layer upon layer—to keep the hens comfy and provide a deep cushion between their tender feet and the frozen cement and ground below. In the spring, when the hens move out on pasture, we clear out the enormity of this soiled bedding and pile it up to compost. The black gold that ensues after a few years of turning and tending is perfect nutrient for our gardens, pastures, and hayfields. However, it also means that I have to be cognizant of what goes into the bedding, especially items that will not decompose well.

This includes bones, and these lamb ribs were full of them. What to do? A roasting fest! Thawing a boxful recently, we crammed the ribs into our arsenal of large roasting pans and cooked up the old meat. Then, with the patience that only comes from really loving your chickens and believing in the value of repurposing instead of wasting, I stood at the counter and stripped the meat and fat off of each bone, one at a time.

The hens were beyond delighted, snarfing the bite-sized pieces and covering their faces in the fat and juices. Five roasting pans full of cooked ribs were no match for 130 feisty hens, who were soon wondering if there was more! The added energy has helped them continue laying right through all these cold stretches, and they’ve been very well behaved with each other socially as well.

I brought out the second box of ribs to thaw this morning, so another roasting fest will be in the offing. This week, how might you find creative ways to let nothing to go waste? See you down on the farm sometime.