Oh Crumb

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Well it's been two weeks since my last post-- apologies to my committed followers. The past few weeks have been extremely busy with school as well as hosting my first guest in "Abby's Hostel", so I fell off the blogging grind a bit. Not to fear, I am back and today I'm going to be talking about food waste reduction!

As a (broke) college student, I am always looking for ways to save money on things like food. Lucky for me, The Netherlands is big on perceived sustainability (more on this in a future post). On Sundays I am a regular at the local "anarchist" bar where they serve free dinners with produce salvaged from the dumpsters of Utrecht. It is always delicious and I have yet to fall ill as a result of consuming it. Last week I tried out an app called "too good to go" where you can pick up foods that are going to be thrown out from local grocery stores, bakeries, butchers, and so forth. I was running low on bread, so I decided to try a "bread basket" from a grocery store near by, just to see what I can expect from this kind of thing. 

I paid three euro via the app, and then went to go get my bread. I was expecting maybe a loaf or two, and perhaps some other sort of baked goods as well that they were getting rid of. Wrong! I walked up to the counter, showed the woman working there my order, and she said, "okay, wait here I'll be right back". She comes back with a CRATE of sandwich bread. Not a box, not a bag, a crate. I kid you not there were about ten loaves of bread in there. I looked at her kind of sheepishly and asked if I had to take all of it. The answer was of course yes. Gotta do my part to reduce food waste right? I had brought my backpack, thinking maybe I'd pick up a few other things while I'm at the store. Wrong again, this bread filled the whole bag (and then some). The only thought that went through my head as I biked home, laden with bread was "Oh crumb, how am I going to eat this all?"

So that's how I ended up with enough bread to feed a family of 12 for about a week. Needless to say, I am still working through it and my fridge has been full of just bread since that day. The good news is, none of it has gone bad yet. Also, it turns out to make a great gift for any gathering with friends! Go get your crate of bread today! 

**Now accepting ideas for what to do with all these carbs

Comments

  1. VirginiaSeptember 30, 2023 at 8:14 AM

    I just read recently that you shouldn't put bread in the fridge it will go bad faster. but of course you probably don't have a very big freezer if at all. I would just distribute to all my friends! good on you for taking advantage of these programs. you're probably eating really good!

    ReplyDelete
  2. rivkah zigmanOctober 6, 2023 at 11:16 AM

    checking in to see how much bread you have left after a week...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AbbyOctober 7, 2023 at 2:27 AM

      Honestly didn't do too bad. Lots of sandwiches were had, and I made a few duck friends who have enjoyed helping me reduce food waste lol

      Delete

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