Many fruits and veggies are actually better after they are no longer perfect-looking. Strawberries, blueberries, tomatoes, and apples all come to mind. As long as they are pasteurized, pickled or cooked, they shouldn’t pose a risk.
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It kinda depends on what that company means by upcycled. Do they mean imperfect looking but otherwise safe food that would be tossed because of imperfections?
I’d think they would have to use safe ingredients. But then why use the term upcycled? A bit of green washing?
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Seems like they try to:
Snip:
We care about our bestie, planet earth too, and nurturing that friendship for the long run. We use the ‘imperfect’ but still perfectly delicious fruits and give them a home in our jar. We’re proud to be Certified Upcycled and excited about how we can continue to create products that are better in more ways than one.
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This is how most of the fruit and veg too ugly for the display bin gets used already. That there’s now someone certifying the “rescued” nature of the produce is hilarious. Not sure I’d call it greenwashing per se, but it sure isn’t a new idea. Where else would all of that diced frozen veg, or the stuff in called soups come from?
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By their own definition sausages are also an upcycled product
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Maybe “hilarious” at first blush, but apparently it’s a thing, a movement of sorts, and it looks ugly fruit and veg isn’t what’s mainly upcycled. Much of it is byproducts that would otherwise get trashed.
Strawberries, though? Maybe they’re using pulp from ones that have had their juice extracted?
I wish that jam company had more info on their site about where and how they get their ingredients.
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Byproducts being creatively used is a good thing-in Milwaukee they use the cheese whey to de-ice the streets in the winter. One of the companies mentioned is using a product from upstate New York-to make ice cream in Oregon. Did using this offset the costs of transporting it across the country? Are there no yougurt makers in the Pacific Northwest?
But the whole “ugly fruit and veg need our love” movement is piggybacking on the industries that already use much of that food, and some of the companies selling it are reducing the amount that goes to food banks and the like.
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Maybe. Got a source for that info? Or is there some way you’ve personally seen that happening?
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I mentioned a bit ago I was going to try the vegan meal kit service, “Purple Carrot,” and we just got our first box this week. It’s my first ever time trying one of these services, so I don’t have much basis for comparison, but it’s pretty awesome.
I got 3 meals, 2 servings each. The ingredients for each meal are conveniently wrapped in a cellophane bag and labeled. And it comes with a color cookbook of all the recipes you could’ve chosen that week, so even though I only ordered 3 meals, I now have a dozen recipes.
Here’s the package for the Seiten tacos and the corresponding page in the cookbook:
And one more sample page from the cookbook:
Made this one last night. Really good.
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The serving size for the entire container is lol worthy. If someone were to strictly adhere to serving sizes they’d be left with a half portion. But the food looks good 
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Purple carrot update:
We made the Seiten asada tacos last night and they were SO good.
The other item we got in that first shipment was pad Thai, also very very good, though a little low on sauce.
So far this seems like something we’ll keep using. The serving sizes are quite hearty. I get at least 2 out of what they consider one serving. With the tacos it’ll likely be 3.
I like the new ideas, too, from the recipes. Like for the tacos last night, it included basmati rice and had you add lime zest and some lime juice to it. It’s so pretty and tasty and something I’d just not thought of before.
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Good point. We shared this between two people.
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Yeah I had the same observation from using Hello Fresh, it’s a great way to try new recipes that you’d never normally want to make
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I wish I had pictures because they look so yummy, but alas, words will have to do.
I’ve been feeling in a slump, cooking-wise, lately. The purple carrot deliveries have helped. Then this week we had a happy accident.
We bought lavash bread for wraps (they were out of tortillas) but they’re too thick for what I wanted.
Enter the flatbread!
We’ve been making all kind of delicious flatbreads with odds and ends in the fridge. So far we’ve made:
- Taco flatbread = black beans, roasted onions and green and red bell pepper, salsa, taco seasoning, vegan cheese. Topped with vegan sour cream, avocado, hot sauce and fresh herbs (go, Aerogarden!)
- Butter Bean flatbread: leftover mash of butter beans and romesco sauce from a purple carrot delivery, leftover roasted veggies noted above, topped out of the oven with fresh spinach and herbs and drizzled with balsamic reduction and sea salt.
It’s like a new twist on the “garbage burrito” approach to using up the bits and bobs of leftovers we end up with. And the lavash bread makes it so easy. It’s like a thin-crust pizza, and can hold up to a surprising heft of topping without flopping.
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So making “pizza” sort of things? That sounds like a great use of flatbreads!
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Exactly. They can hold up to a surprising amount of topping, for how thin they are.
We’ve been sliding them onto a pizza steel in the pre-heated (425F) oven for 10 minutes. Really nice quick meal.
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Haven’t done it in a few years but that was my mom’s hack for personal pizzas, It’s pretty good!
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