Preparing food

As explained before, we are not able to spend too much money on the road. When our savings are used up, it means for us that the journey is over. That’s why we decided to prepare as much food as possible before the trip – out of saved food so that we avoid spending money on it. And let me tell you, it is crazy how much food gets thrown away in Germany. Here’s a little impression:

Looks like a market stand. But all of this is out of a supermarkets waste containers.

You could call this an unsuccessful night.

Out of apples and other fruits we prepared and preserved apple sauce and other fruit sauces – for example with bananas, pears, apples and (yes!) grapes. Actually, even if we did not expect that, it’s delicious!

We also cut some of the vegetables and fruits and put them into a maschine which pulls the water out of the food. This way, the fresh food gets preserved. When you wanna eat it (except the banana chips) you can just pour hot water over it and it will turn back into the original food.

Drying machine.

Ready dried out food. Peppers, bananas, spring onions, carrots (f.l.t.r.).

I tell you: That took some good midnight nerves. Going dumpster diving, you have to go at night, when the store is already closed. When you come back with all this saved food, you need to wash everything and check if it really still is fine – sometimes it looks better in the dark than in the bright kitchen. Afterwards you need to use the fresh food up pretty fast, since it was already lying around in the waste containers for some time and is perishable. Nevertheless, we think it’s a good step away from food waste. This is why we are spending our time on doing it.

Plus, we were picking mirabels for free, preparing lots of jam out of them. Also more work than we thought since the stone of mirabels is pretty tight in the fruit. But, it turned out delicious. So it was worth the work!

Picking mirabels.

Homemade jams.