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Minimizing Food Waste is not as Hard as it Seems!

June 4, 2018 Lydia Buschenfeldt Leave a Comment

Let’s dis­cuss food waste. You may think that while you throw away some food every week, it can’t be all that big of a deal, right? Not so much. Most esti­mates say that in the Unit­ed States each year, we throw away $160 bil­lion worth of food — that is no small amount! And while most of that is not from your house, you can do your share to throw away a lit­tle less food and save your­self some of that total.

First, think about all of the rea­sons why we buy too much food. There are whole­sale clubs sell­ing bulk pro­duce and dairy prod­ucts that may go bad before we have a chance to eat them, but they are such a good deal, how can we pass them up? Farm­ers’ mar­kets are gear­ing up for anoth­er sum­mer of offer­ing their deli­cious boun­ty and some­times it is a lit­tle too tempt­ing to sup­port your local farm­ers by pur­chas­ing more than you need in your recipe. We go to the gro­cery store hun­gry or stressed (or both), and we end up buy­ing more things than we need. Many healthy recipes seem to call for small­er por­tions of fresh ingre­di­ents than you can buy at the store, too.

What can we do to min­i­mize this food waste? Here are a few ideas to try and pre­vent that extra food from com­ing into your house in the first place:

  1. Try and stick to your list to min­i­mize how much extra food you buy. Be cre­ative and give your­self a reward if you need encour­age­ment. (Food nerd that I am, I like to tell myself that I get to try one new item if I stick to my list!)
  2. Need just a small amount of some­thing? Ask the gro­cery store if they can split that bunch of fresh herbs into a small­er size bundle.
  3. When­ev­er pos­si­ble, do your best to avoid being hun­gry at the gro­cery store. Can you shop a dif­fer­ent day and just go home if you are stressed? Or try a few min­utes of calm­ing breaths (with a healthy snack) before you go into the store in the first place.
  4. If you notice that you are reg­u­lar­ly throw­ing the same types of foods away, don’t buy those at Cost­co any­more — you’re not actu­al­ly sav­ing any mon­ey if a good amount is going in the garbage!
  5. Freeze, freeze, and one more time, freeze! So many food items can be frozen to pre­serve their fresh­ness and be used at a lat­er date. 
    • Dice up veg­gies and either make a quick soup that you can freeze for lat­er or freeze them raw for use at a future date. Cut into pieces and lie flat in a Ziploc bag­gie in the freez­er. Once frozen, you can stack the bag­gies to help pre­serve pre­cious real estate in your freezer.
    • If your bananas are head­ing past their prime, peel them and break into halves and store in a Ziploc bag in the freez­er for future smooth­ies or banana bread. Sim­ply let them thaw pri­or to mash­ing, and then you can bake to your heart’s content!
    • Most fruit can be stored in the freez­er to be used in smooth­ies or any recipe where they will be cooked or blend­ed and don’t need to main­tain their orig­i­nal shape (i.e. blue­ber­ry jam, rasp­ber­ry purée for chia seed pud­ding, thawed for muffins, etc.). Berries, mel­on, peeled cit­rus, and even avo­ca­dos do great in the freez­er and add an extra frosti­ness to your next smooth­ie! In fact, check out this mon­th’s smooth­ie video to see for your­self how you can incor­po­rate frozen fruit into your next blender concoction!
    • Rarely am I able to use all of the herbs that I pur­chase before they go bad, and I don’t always have the time to trans­fer them to a pot and let them keep grow­ing. For­tu­nate­ly, ice cube trays are the per­fect size for freez­ing herbs to use in indi­vid­ual recipes. Sim­ply chop the herbs, add a splash of olive oil and fill with water. Once frozen, pop out of the con­tain­er and store in a freez­er-safe bag or container.

Make sure to label all of your freez­er bags with their con­tents and the date, so you can be ready to rock and roll for your next meal plan­ning bonanza!

Food

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Based in Fairfax, Virginia, Hatch Health and Happiness offers full-service face-to-face health coaching in Northern Virginia and virtually around the globe!
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610-220-7036

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Healthy Living — Great Recipes and Ideas!

Trail Mix

Bulk Bin Trail Mix

September 4, 2018 Leave a Comment

Sure, it’s tempt­ing­ly easy to grab a bag of pre-made trail mix –col­or­ful, effort­less, and with such fun names to boot! But have you ever stopped to glance at the nutri­tion facts of that bag of seem­ing­ly healthy options? More specif­i­cal­ly, check out the sug­ar con­tent. Some com­mer­cial brands of trail mix have as much sug­ar as a 16 oz bot­tle of soda! The main cul­prit is sweet­ened dried fruit, and some brands add can­dy as well. If that deli­cious mouth­ful of sweet and salty is your taste­buds’ desire, don’t despair. There are plen­ty of ways to make a deli­cious AND nutri­tious trail mix, all with ingre­di­ents from your gro­cery store bulk bin! [Read More…]

Product Reviews — NEW!

Purely Elizabeth Superfood Oat Cups with Granola Topping — Cranberry Pumpkin Seed

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Meal Planning

Meal Planning

July 31, 2018 Leave a Comment

One of the trick­i­est parts of most people’s healthy rou­tines is the meal plan­ning com­po­nent. Luck­i­ly for you, we have that cov­ered with the lat­est install­ment in our Hatch Video series! More…

Bloat Buster Smoothie

Bloat Buster Smoothie

June 4, 2018 Leave a Comment

Now that we are head­ing into the warmer months of the year, you may find your­self want­i­ng to spend less time in front of the hot stove top or oven. For­tu­nate­ly, smooth­ies are a great way to pack a lot of nutri­tion in one place. Check out the video below for one of my favorite smooth­ies — the bloat buster!

Pan roasted plantains

Pan-Roasted Plantains

May 1, 2018 Leave a Comment

Pan roasted plantains with mashed avocadoDespite the fact that plan­tains close­ly resem­ble a banana, they have a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent fla­vor and are def­i­nite­ly not to be con­sumed raw (you’ll only make that mis­take once!). Plan­tains are actu­al­ly a veg­etable, chock full of fiber, cal­ci­um and vit­a­min C. Pan-roast­ing the plan­tains allows them to caramelize, keep­ing the out­side a lit­tle bit crispy and the inside nice and soft. Cin­na­mon, gin­ger and turmer­ic add a tri­fec­ta of anti-inflam­ma­to­ry good­ness and a lit­tle sprin­kle of sea salt makes these plan­tains absolute­ly irre­sistible. Enjoy as is, or my favorite way –- with mashed avo­ca­do! More…

Energy bites

Energy Balls

April 2, 2018 Leave a Comment

Gluten, Grain, Dairy, Soy-Free and Vegan

Seeds need ener­gy in order to grow, and cul­ti­vat­ing your own healthy habits can take a lot of ener­gy too! Ener­gy bars and ener­gy balls are every­where we look these days. They are super easy to whip up your­self, but many peo­ple are intim­i­dat­ed by the thought. More…

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About Lydia and Hatch Health

Lydia Buschenfeldt

I was a happy, healthy, newlywed 4th grade teacher when a random virus paralyzed my GI system, along with parts of my … More...

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Client Testimonials

Rainbow

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I’d say Lydia Buschen­feldt has changed my life, but that would­n’t be exact­ly true. What she does is even more pow­er­ful. Any­one can tell some­one else what changes they ‘need’ to make to live a health­i­er life. It takes some­one spe­cial to enable and empow­er you to change your own life. Lydia is that some­one spe­cial. Dur­ing every ses­sion, at every twist and turn and bump in the road, Lydia meets me where I am with an incred­i­ble amount of knowl­edge and patience, and helps me iden­ti­fy one or two steps for­ward to accom­plish the goals I have for myself. She knows that each jour­ney is dif­fer­ent, and cus­tomizes our ses­sions so our dis­cus­sions are tai­lored toward what I need in that moment to help me build the health, future and hap­pi­ness that I deserve.
— L.S.
Man­as­sas, VA More…

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quoteOur greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. --Thomas Edison

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Contact Lydia

Based in Fair­fax, Vir­ginia, Hatch Health and Hap­pi­ness offers full-ser­vice face-to-face health coach­ing in North­ern Vir­ginia and vir­tu­al­ly around the globe!
lydia@hatchhealthhappiness.com
610−220−7036

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