One of the biggest questions that I got when I first started posting about Bento Boxes was, "seems like a lot of waste, how much food gets wasted when you are making the lunches?"
This lead me to documenting the waste for a week. Its surprising but there isn't a lot at all, so there is no worries about much waste. The largest waste you will see is bread. With the sandwiches being cut and the shape of the bread, there is quite a bit of bread that goes daily, but I use that for another use. I take the leftover bread, cut it into little chunks, and freeze until I have a full bag. Then I put the waste to good use instead of the garbage! I turn them into yummy homemade croutons for us! Voila, reused nicely!
The little bits of other waste is basically just from cleaning out fruit or veggies and it is normal waste you would have whether you cut shapes into your lunches or not. That waste I throw into my composter and use to grow my veggies in the summer, YUM YUM! Or the little bits of vaggies (like when I cut a flower out of cucumber slices), I have for a nice crunchy night time snack :D If there is leftover meat or anything, I will roll it up and put a cute little character pick into it like the character is rolling the meat down the road, more fun of course!
So, here is the lunch and waste I had for this week....
- Day 1: Swiss Cheese crackers, yogurt covered craisins, some rolled up skewers of meat and cheese, choc chip cookie, veggies, and mixed fruit.
Waste: tried rolling the bologna but the pick ripped through it and it made it too hard to use it unfortunately
- Day 2: Frog bologna sandwich, used leftover meat as a meat and cheese skewer, cucumbers with the outside thrown in for a reverse fun design, cookie wafers, and mixed fruit.
Waste: Just cucumber peels, a little bit of meat, and of course the breadcrumbs ready to be frozen and used later!
- Day 3: Teddy Bear sandwich with red pepper nose, leftover meat rolled up, babybel cheese, cheesies, mixed veggies and mixed fruit.
Waste: little bit of meat, veggie leftovers from cleaning them out, and then croutons to be :D
- Day 4: Homemade blueberry pancakes, mixed veggies with ranch dip, cookie, cheese string cute up and half a pear.
Waste: half a pear was used in the lunch, but then I ate the other half as my snack....then just bits of the blueberry pancake I trimmed off to make it nice looking
So there you have it...not a lot of waste if you really take a look. Sure, some days might make a bit more waste, but this is a pretty typical week from bento lunch making...not too bad if you ask me :D A good trade off for a fun lunch to eat!
You guys surprised at the waste amount? Convinced yet to do your own Bentos?
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