The best way to tackle the problem of food waste is to not let it go waste. Buy fruits in lesser quantity and using them before they go stale. Most importantly it’s important to know the ways you can reuse them. Most people tend to dispose many fruit parts and rinds as if these things are of no use anymore. Basically, it’s common to think that inedible areas of fruits are good organic fertilizers or added compose dirt in the future. Aside for this purpose, they cannot think of anything else.
There are many ways to make good use of what people thought as disposable parts. They can even eat the skins if processed correctly. Want to know how? Here are the best ways of using disposable fruit parts while reducing waste and saving money.
1) Why buy pots for seedlings if fruit shells are a good alternative? Check the avocado shells for instance. Gardeners may use these scooped-out shells as seedling pots before relocating the sprouts to the garden. In this way, they can include the entire avocado shell to serve as an organic fertilizer.
2) Tired of commercialized pesticides that cannot prevent even slugs from the plants? It’s better to crush those nut shells and distribute them around the plants. Rough surfaces will prevent crawlers from reaching the plant which will help plants to live free from crawlers.
3) It is also better to use the skin of peaches for facial treatment than spending money for commercialized beauty products. Peaches contain both Vitamin A and potassium that help the skin to rejuvenate. Just add a little sugar on the pulpy side of the fruit’s skin and one can begin to rub it on her face gently.
4) Fruits can help people polish metals. Fruits that contain citric acid such as lime and lemon are efficient metal polisher. People can use the juice or pulp of these fruits to polish non-ferrous metals such as copper and brass.
5) Aside from seedling pot avocado shells, one can use large fruit shells to serve salads or other dishes. Scooped shells of watermelons and melons are good alternatives for bowls during cocktail parties. However, they must keep in mind that these alternative bowls are not for permanent usage.
6) Skins can become edible, especially, those of lemons and oranges. Some people make a candy out of it by boiling the rinds to an equal mixture of sugar and water; after which, they coat the rinds with granulated sugar and voilà! They have their sweet dessert after meal.
7) Banana peels can make people slip down to the ground but it can also shine a shoe as well. Rub the slippery part of the peel to the shoe and it will become as good as new. The days I forget to shine my shoes in the morning and I happen to carry a banana for lunch, I make good use of the peel.
8) Peanut shells are good supplements for coals when grilling. Aside from burning slowly, the nut shells produce aromatic smoke which gives the meat a distinct smoky taste. People can soak the shells under water and let it dry before throwing it to the coal to extend shells’ burning efficiency.
9) Experiencing diarrhea? Pomegranate can save people from expensive medicines. All they need to do is boil the skin of pomegranate together with a stick of cinnamon and drink it. Three glasses a day will repel diarrhea away.
10) Still using black hair dye to hide gray hair? Start boiling the peels of potatoes and after filtering it, rinse the gray hair with the water from boiled potato peels after applying shampoo. It will make the gray hair black.
11) Vodka lovers can use fruit skins to infuse their vodka. By letting the fruit skin soaked in vodka for a week, people will be able to add extra flavor to their liquor.
12) Fruit skins are not only for vodka, it can also be used for olive oils. Aside from adding extra taste, peels of citrus will also rejuvenate the oil to keep up its efficiency.
13) Why shop for a lemon air-freshener if a do-it-yourself freshener can be done easily? With the use of the rinds of lemon, one can boil it or microwave it to extract the powerful smell of lemon. They can even use it as freshener of the entire kitchen or the entire house if they want to.
14) Banana peels are not only for shoes; rather, it can also be used to shine the leaves of the plants. Aside from the shine it gives, it also serves as efficient organic fertilizer and pesticide for plants.
15) People who love to peel apples can sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on it and bake it. This will end up to crispy and sweet snack for everybody.
16) Both pulp and skins of a papaya contains Papain and Vitamin A which can help people remove their dead skin cells, especially, below their feet. By rubbing the papaya skins on the foot’s sole, once can soothe and soften it. It’s also a good way of relaxation because it gives a cool and refreshing feeling.
For further reading, here’s another good article on reusing food waste.
This is amazing. I have really only heard of like three of these things before. Definitely will consider some of these. Not so sure about trying the banana on the shoe though. Maybe I can test it on my wife’s first 🙂
I’ve heard of a couple more.Just do a google for complete instructions.
After blanching and peeling tomatoes (for canning) they dried the tomato peels, then powdered them in a grinder/blender. When added with water it made a tomato paste.
Using discarded apple peelings and cores, when making applesauce, boil this these in water and make your own fruit pectin.
Take scooped out halved oranges/ grapefruit shells and fill up with cake batter. Bake in oven.
Great post SB. Thanks for the tips on reusing food waste. It’s a great way to save to if we follow the tips you mentioned here.
Great post. We waste far too much as a civilization, but that goes double for America. Anything we can do to up the sustainability level of things is a contribution we should make. Finding another use for products and goods we have already paid for, and will continue to purchase anyways is a great idea.
These are wonderful frugal ways that everyone should know. Here in our place, there are locals who use the banana peels and make them into chips. I have tasted it and it tastes great.
I like using citrus peels to clean my garbage disposal. Just put them in the disposal and grind with water. The citrus oil is a cleaning agent and you get the wonderful citrus smell all the while it’s grinding! You can also plant seeds in grapefruit halves after you’ve eaten the fruit out of it.
Any fruit that is getting close to going bad can be pureed and frozen as ice cubes to add to drinks like iced tea or fruit juice. It saves money and is yummy!
Didn’t know about the banana peel trick – thanks!
That is awesome! I would have never thought that there was so many uses for used fruit. I would love to try the peanut shell ones, along with the banana peel tricks.
You’re most welcome. List is just to motivate you. Once you start you’ll find many many more uses. Good luck!
Interesting! I just toss it all into the garden. Composting FTW.