Quick Tips: What is food trash?

Let’s start with some trash talk. These are items that are not and let me reiterate, NOT, acceptable as food wastes. You can throw these away in your regular trash bags that you buy from the store. Ok, here we go. Hard nut shells such as chestnut, walnuts, peanuts, acorns, coconut, pineapple, or cherry or grape stems. These are also not acceptable: Onion peels, roots of green onions, garlic peels, corn husks, large seeds or pits of peaches, apricots, persimmons and other fruits with pits or seeds.

Just remember this, if an animal can eat it, then it is considered food waste. If not then it goes in the regular trash bag. The trash in the regular bags are usually burned, so it is very important to get rid of all the recyclable items.

Oh, and bones from meat and feathers from poultry (now I don’t know who would defeather their own poultry, but just in case) are NOT food waste. Neither are clam shells, abalone, crab or lobster.

Oh and if you happen to gut and clean your own blowfish (which has the lethal poison: tetraodontidae: a lethal dose is the amount on top of a pin.) that is also NOT food waste. That’s just poison and it is dangerous.

And finally, Tea bags, egg shells, and herbal medicine residue such as cinnamon sticks with cloves and honey (a great sore throat cure) are NOT food waste.

About the Author

Daniel

Daniel Gray is a Korean adoptee that returned to Korean in 2005 because he wanted to try and find his birth mother and to learn about Korean culture. He started a restaurant review blog in 2007, www.seouleats.com, that became a local and international hit. He and his blog has been featured in the New York Times, Monocle Magazine, The Kimchi Chronicles, Bizarre Foods, Rudy Maxa, Olive Magazine, Euronews and much more. He now is a partner at O’ngo Food Communications (www.ongofood.com), which is a culinary tourism and consulting company that offers Korean cooking classes and restaurant tours to travelers. Their food tours and cooking classes are ranked as one of the top attractions in Seoul according to tripadvisor.