Stumbled on a wild stat about restaurant waste in a trade magazine

I was flipping through an old issue of 'The Chef's Journal' at my dentist's office and saw that a place in Portland, Oregon, tracked their food waste for a month. They found out they were throwing away nearly 40 pounds of vegetable trimmings every single day, just from prepping. It made me really look at our own scrap bucket. How do you guys handle veggie scraps, like carrot tops and onion skins, to cut down on that kind of loss?

3 comments

3 Comments

kim.dylan4mo ago

Forty pounds a day is a whole lot of onion skins... we just started saving all that stuff in a freezer bag for making stock. It's kind of amazing how much flavor you get from things you were just going to toss.

lilymurphy2mo ago

Hate to be that person @leelewis but corn cobs can actually make stock taste a little starchy if you leave them in too long... I'd use them sparingly or just not at all honestly. The rest of your mix sounds perfect though.

leelewis4mo ago

What else do you toss in that stock bag? I've been doing onion and garlic skins, carrot tops, and mushroom stems. Ever try adding corn cobs or something weird that worked?