Waste not want not: the empty peanut butter jar

We threw away half our food last year. We wasted $165 billion. (source) By we I mean the United States. 

I am guilty of throwing things out, I shove then in the freezer with good intentions and then months later I toss them in the trash can. 

I talk a lot about meal planning here because it saves time and money, but it also reduces waste. 

I had been thinking a lot about this last week. I reached my hand into the cupboard to find an empty peanut butter jar. I got frustrated and went throw it out when I realized it wasn't empty. There was still a whole serving in there, I just had to get out my rubber spatula and scrap it out of the jar. Peanut butter is on average $.13 a serving. That $.13 wasn't going to make or break me, but it was principle. 

Sometimes saving something isn't about the money we save. It's about being grateful, not being wasteful, being good stewards of our resources and remembering that there is a person in the world for whom two tablespoons of peanut butter is a luxury.