Five Foods People Throw Away That You Really Shouldn’t

In the Western world, people are wasteful. The average household is throwing out several days’ worth of food each week that they really shouldn’t.

But even if you are trying to create a good workout diet plan, and minimize your waste, there are lots of bits that you could be throwing out, but shouldn’t be. The problem is you trying to prepare as quickly as you can. So you’ll get a carrot, “top and tail” it, and then throw those bits in the bin. You’ll do it without even thinking.

But when you’re preparing a workout diet plan, with the number of fresh ingredients you’ll be working with, those little bits of ways can add up into an extra day’s food per week that you could be benefiting from.

So let’s take a look in detail at five foods that are commonly included in bulking and cutting workout plans, so you can see what the waste is, and how to minimize it by reusing those offcuts.

The Reasons Why You Benefit From Learning How To Minimize Your Food Waste

There are several key reasons why you should look in detail at the waste you throw away:

1. You’re losing some serious nutritional benefits from the bits you’re throwing away. People often miss some of the most nutritional parts are those which most people don’t use.
2. You’re saving the planet. The less you throw away, the less you are buying. That means less packaging, less energy used in food production, and more food to go around.
3. You’re saving money. If you are really scrupulous about this, if you’re doing a lot of food preparation, you can actually save one day a week’s food just by using what you would usually waste.

1. Beet Greens

with beet greens, you’re getting leafy tops and the lovely round bulbs. Both of these are equally nutritious, and equally as edible.

If you throw any parts out, you’re missing out on vitamin a, vitamins C, and vitamin K in large amounts. You’ll also be surprised to know that a small cup of beet tops will contain twice the recommended daily amount of those vitamins.

To use the whole thing, you can use beet greens in salads, with pasta, and even frittatas. You can create a side dish, by sautéing beet greens with garlic and olive oil.

2. Broccoli

Most people chop off the stalks and keep the heads of broccoli. That’s the bit everyone uses, and the wastage on fresh broccoli can sometimes be 50% of what you’ve bought. That’s absolutely criminal.

Ironically, if you just chop off the very hard bit at the bottom, and maybe strip the outer layer of hard skin if you’re really fussy, the stalks of the broccoli are actually tastier and sweeter than the rather bland broccoli florets.

To prepare them, cut off just the tip that hard, and then use a vegetable peeler to get rid of the outer layer. Then slice them quite thinly, and you can use them in stir-fries, soups, pasta dishes, and even with scrambled eggs. Throw the some into a salad, or even use them with carrot sticks with dips.

3. Carrots

Carrots are another classic healthy food which is often disposed of when there’s really no need to. Some people cut the tops off, while some people “top and tail” them by cutting the top and the bottom off.

You’ll also get people to use a vegetable peeler to take the outer layer off, to reveal the softer and moister inside. All of those bits get thrown away when there’s really no need. Up to ¼ of the carrot can vanish into the bin without ever being used, and that’s absolutely ridiculous.

You can use the offcuts in salads, that’s the most common way. You can use them in soup, throw them in with a few other vegetable offcuts. Mix them with beans or pulses.

You could even use them in green sources such as pasta, or salsa verde, or even use them to check in with roasted other than vegetables.

4. Pumpkin And Watermelon Seeds

Both pumpkin and watermelon seeds are things that people nearly always throw away, and it always astonishes me. With watermelon, the seeds are what contains most of the nutrients. The actual flesh is mostly water. So by scooping the seeds out and throwing them away, you actually get rid of a lot of what you bought the watermelon for in the first place.

And even if you only buy a pumpkin at Halloween, when was the last time you kept what you scooped out to make a pumpkin pie?

Dietary magnesium is crucial for many purposes in the body, and many seeds, including melons, contain large amounts of it.

The seeds can both be roasted. They can then be mixed with salads, put in yogurt, or even added to home-made energy bars. When you think about the number of sees that you scoop out and throw away, you’re actually chucking away an incredible volume of very nutritious food.

5. Swiss Shard Stems

Let’s finish this top 5 to not throw away if you’re wanting a perfect bodybuilding meal plan, by looking at Swiss shard stems.  Most people go for the leafy tops because they look better, and fit in with a variety of hot and cold dishes more easily.

But you should still be treating the stems is something that can be used in its own right, not just chopped off and thrown in the bin every time.

They have a bittersweet taste and aren’t great raw, which may be why people get put off them. But even sautéed, a lot of these issues can be dissolved.

To use Swiss shard stems, simply sauté them with garlic and oil, then they can be added to things like stir-fries, soups, even with omelets. They can be used with other greens, even waste greens, in a variety of ways. You could also slice them very thinly once sautéed is a very different surprise to put in an everyday salad.