Last year the USDA estimated that about 31% of the food available to consumers in the United States goes to waste. As someone who tries to live both sustainably and frugally, this seems absolutely ridiculous. However, when I really think through my eating habits, I know that I’m not perfect. I don’t think I’ve ever thrown away as much as 30% of my food, but I definitely know that there are leftovers that go bad in my fridge and produce (especially at the height of harvest season) that gets thrown away.

Planning is a partial answer, I find that if I plan my meals out ahead of time I can avoid a lot of waste, but there is more than I can do. Finding ways to use food scraps and waste is definitely going a step further. Here are some ways that I’ve found to reuse food waste that others might just throw away:

Do you have any other suggestions for using kitchen scraps?