"ugly" vegetables- stop food waste

I love working in the garden. I love growing vegetables and herbs alongside flowers.

We always had a vegetable garden. As a kid I found it often a bit boring to help my mother- but I loved to pull out carrots, pick strawberries, parsley and other stuff and eat them on the spot.

It took me some time to grow some vegetables successfully in Israel- I was not accustomed to the different growing cycle, the long, hot, dry summers.

Some of the things I grow today are a huge success- others I still find hard- like onions, sweet potatoes, peas. Well, there's always something new to learn.

Today I would like to write about something that is closely related to my love for gardening: Food waste- especially waste of fresh vegetables, fruits or herbs.

I always wondered why products have to be so uniform; Cucumbers need to have a certain length and diameter, apples a certain size and shape etc.

Where are the funny carrots I so much loved to pull out of the ground as a kid? The ones with the two legs? The potatoes with the knobby nose?

What happens to all the non-conform products?

image taken from the website of "imperfect produce"

Things start to change slowly. In Switzerland in one of the big supermarket chains you can buy "Ünique" vegetables and fruits- they have non-conform shapes or sizes, cost less and taste good all the same.

I stumbled over two projects in the internet in the last days, quite by coincidence:

"Imperfect Produce" in the USA- immediately fell in love with their googly-eyed-vegetables and fruits (see above image)

"OddBox" from the UK

Both offer home delivery in boxes. I don't know them personally and can't try them- but I love the idea, the ideology behind their projects.

To this day I am not aware of a similar project in Israel, although I do get some unique looking vegetables through my organic vegetable supplier.

If you are familiar with a similar project/ company, let me know!