Well, this hurts

Throwing food out has always been something that I hate to do.  The fact is, Americans throw out approximately 40 percent of the food they buy, most of the time because they end up in the form of leftovers and we don't know what to do with them.  Our grandmothers would have made soup or casseroles out of it all, but we don't live in a culture that re-purposes leftovers, so they end up getting thrown away.

I try and re-invent leftovers as much as possible, but face a stiff audience -- my family -- who doesn't care for leftovers unless they're something fabulous that can be re-heated in much the same form it started in.  Like burrito meat.  But leftover celery, a small piece of cornbread, or some cranberry sauce will usually sit in the fridge until I finally get disgusted and throw it out.  I probably make more effort than the average person to re-use leftovers, but I have a long way to go, I will be honest.

But we are worming our chickens right now, they did their time on the Wazine and now we are waiting for it to clear their system.  In the meantime, their eggs are inedible, and so, as perfect and lovely as they appear, they have to go straight into the trash.  We can't even give them to the dogs, because they are being wormed right now as well and they don't need any double-dosing on the active ingredients in the wormers.

One week from today we can again begin collecting and consuming our eggs, but until then....it's going to look like this.  And more than store-bought goods, when I see my hens producing food, I'm much less likely to want to waste it.  And so it hurts, more than a little, to throw these away.