I made a New Year’s resolution in 2018 that’s proving useful during the current emergency: don’t waste food.

In the kitchen, as I write, a pot of stock is simmering on the stove, as it does every week. A couple of years’ worth of resolution builds habits. I now keep a bag in the fridge where I stow the fibrous ends of asparagus spears, broccoli stems, celery leaves, fennel stalks, the wastage of whatever we’ve eaten over the course of the week. Bones from chicken carcasses or pork chops go into the freezer. In case we don’t have any bones for the weekly broth, I also keep a supply of chicken drumsticks in the freezer, too, separately wrapped.  

Usually I make the stock on Saturday, but since we’re eating at home every day lately, food disappears pretty quickly. So today my bag of leftover veg bits went into the stock pot along with an onion studded with cloves, herbs, white peppercorns, a bay leaf and a couple of drumsticks. I’ll use it in soups or stews, whatever.

At the moment, it smells great. And it’s cheap. There’s that, too. 

Other cheap, resolution-related, non-wastage recipes we’ve used since the lockdown started: Ten-Cheese Mac and Cheese made from the grated ends of whatever cheeses were cluttering up the fridge; Leftover Frittata, in which you fry half an onion in a couple of slices of bacon in a cast-iron pan, throw in some leftover cooked veg, a cut-up bit of sausage, four eggs beaten with a splash of milk and some grated cheese; let it cook a little, then stick the fry pan under the broiler. Banana Bread, of course; Bread Pudding—heels of bread go into the freezer around here, too—plus there’s a dish of assorted Roasted Vegetables made from a few ragtag ends of veg tossed in olive oil, herbs and balsamic vinegar. 

Now that we can’t go out very often to shop, I’ve been augmenting all this non-wastage by using up whatever has been hanging around in the cupboards. A couple of months ago, I bought some dried blueberries in the bulk store that didn’t have much flavour. Recently I softened them in boiling water, drained them and used them to make blueberry banana cake, and they were fine. The soup I made from the stock pot last week included the last pieces of pasta in a bag and a can of beans that was skating pretty close to its best-before date.

In a sense, it’s a game. How can I not throw anything out? What new recipes can I find online for the last half bulb of fennel?

Yet it’s never been quite a game.

What prompted my 2018 resolution was reading the staggering figures for food wastage in Canada. One study I read showed that Canada wastes more food than almost any other country in the world, with about 400 kilograms of food per person being thrown out each year. That adds up to an average of about $1,700 worth of food per household .

The figure includes food wasted along all steps in the food chain, starting with farmers (who don’t waste much) packagers, shippers, stores, restaurants and individual homes. So it’s not just us, the consumers. 

But a study commissioned by Second Harvest last year pinned down the figure for individual households. It shows that Canadian households are responsible for 21 per cent of the avoidable food waste in this country. Maybe we toss cans of beans we haven’t used before the best-before date, maybe we throw out limp carrots, lettuce, asparagus, whatever we leave too long in the fridge. And since Second Harvest says their 21 per cent figure includes the four million Canadians who struggle to eat regular meals, the other 32 million of us are throwing out more than the figure suggests.

My ballpark guess: most Canadian homes like ours are throwing out about $500 worth of food a year.

Of course, we’re all busy. Or we were. Sometimes we would spontaneously eat out, sometimes we’d just feel too tired to cook and order in pizza. So the fresh food we bought with every good intention would get tossed.

I don’t think our household was unusually wasteful. But in the summer I would often justify tossing the lettuce/carrot/avocado because it went into the composter, although carrot peels and avocado skins would give us all the compost necessary. In winter—well, Toronto has a very good green bin program which was supposed to start fueling garbage trucks with biofuel this summer. (Maybe it still will. Who knows?)

Yet despite my justification—my evasions—wasting food struck me as wrong and it bugged me, and I decided to try not to do it anymore.

Now, of course, we don’t have any choice. Who’s earning anything right now? Not me. Not a lot of us. A hockey friend of mine hauled an old can of tuna out of the pantry and made a tuna casserole in a simple cream sauce, an old-fashioned dinner which, as it turns out, her kid loved. Then there’s the craze for sourdough bread, at least if you can find flour. It’s cheaper than bakery bread, and you can always have a fresh loaf on hand. Me, I love my new yoghurt maker. The main reason I got it was to stop throwing out so many plastic containers, but it saves a few dollars, too.

I think we all realize by now that this isn’t going to end any time soon. I’m glad of my new habits for just about every reason–including the fact I don’t have to go out shopping very often. 

I went out today. Line-ups, people behaving stupidly, unpredictable shortages. When I got home, my chest was tight with tension. 

I put on the stock pot. Felt a little better.

And now it’s time to cook dinner.