Excessive pumpkin waste

[CoolShoeshine]

It seems like people have forgotten that pumpkins are actually food. It is incredibly wasteful that so many are grown each year just to decorate houses. It used to be one or two pumpkins carved for fun, but now some people seem to have multiple pumpkins of all sizes and colours outside their house in a decorative pile. They look lovely but wouldn't it be better if the country's fields and farming resources were put to better use? I cant imagine any other foods being wasted in this way without an outcry!

Im convinced the people who tell their kids theres no such thing as Santa from a young age either have mental problems or are trolls.

I must be the only one that eats them after carving! I cut out all the flesh, theres actually loads if you can be bothered ive made pumpkin soup today and last week I made pumpkin coconut chicken curry soooo good!

I feed mine to my chickens. The bit currently outside my house is the skin which would have gone in the compost even if humans had eaten it.
chickens are actually really good at pumpkin carving if you start them off.

They can have a tiny bit , like all things for guinea-pigs (with the exception of hay ) it's moderation.
Mine hated it though and spat it straight out .

"We'd rather eat the Twix you bought for the Trick or Treaters " they whinged .

The whole Halloween thing seems to have ramped up this year. Unbelievably elaborate displays in people’s front gardens. Every other passer-by by in black clothing and make up, all pre teenage kids in their “ spooky gear” ( or so it seemed). It’s not just the pumpkin waste, it’s all the other tat, nylon “ spider web” , “ enter if you dare” tape etc etc. I think it’s all ludicrous and consumer/ social media driven for the most part.

Pumpkin seeds are not toxic

Pumpkins are, to me, horrible to eat. So, I dump them. 🤷‍♀️

And I don’t. Doesnt keep me up at night.

I’m only posting as some people don’t understand why others don’t like them.

Except,pumpkins make a lot of wildlife sick.

We pay for them and they don’t taste great IMO so there’s no actual waste!

I do when its made with cooking pumpkins and not carving pumpkins. Jame's Martins's recipe is amazing. He adds in line juice after its cooked and garnishes it with aswirl of yoghurt or cream, a swirl of pumpkin oil and sprinkled oven baked seasoned pumpkin seeds. I prefer lime zest to the seeds.

They are biodegradable and produced in the UK, which is better than a lot of decorations.

who said they were? did I miss something?

you might have bought a cooker? carving pumpkins are usually quite hollow, stringy and wet and taste of nothing. Hence all those photos of "cute" children holding giant pumpkins. Cookers are much heavier for their size than carvers.

Oh bore off.
You could say anything we do for the purposes of "decoration" or indeed "fun" is wasteful.
Shall we all stop having birthday parties or in fact any social occasions?

I agree OP, the fact is the resources used to provide pumpkins could be better used for actual food production. It seems so wasteful to grow, harvest and transport these things to supermarkets only for them to be used for a very short time then as food waste and landfill. I have long given up pumpkin carving for this reason.

Be found that they go mouldy pretty quickly especially in the milder weather we have recently.

Urgh I’m so tired of this shite. Moan moan pumpkins moan moan fireworks moan moan Christmas lets just work and work and work and moan and work and moan.

Stop trying to police people and tell them what to do. Just sod off and leave us alone.

Pumpkins taste absolutely grim though 😂

I actually would rather decorate with pumpkins/flowers/etc (eg we always make witches brooms from sticks we collect for Halloween decs) and have my decor be biodegradable. Plastic ones may temporarily reduce waste but they still will exist in decades when you aren’t using them any more.

I always compost mine for my garden.

In theory, yes, the resources could be used for growing crops we will eat but there are also flowers, Christmas trees etc that are grown for decoration. And again, I would rather use them when they biodegrade over using the same tatty plastic one and it outlive me.

yes a poster up thread

I agree with your guinea pig!

"What do you mean? Pumpkins can be stored for ages, usually through the whole of winter. Standing outside (uncarved) for a day or two does not mean they can't be eaten."

Actually you are both right. The type that are grown for food have much more flesh, a lower water content and a harder skin. Provided that they are allowed to ripen properly they will keep for months if properly stored. Carving pumpkins grown much faster and bigger. They hold more water, hence the fast growth and less tasty flesh and have a much thinner skin, all of which means they have a much shorter storage life... Those pumpkins grown for giant pumpkin competitions are the ultimate in this. They grow fast so can attain giant size over one growing season and hold a lot of water so can be good and heavy at weigh in

oh gosh no of course they aren't!

Yes exactly this! I actively choose to decorate with pumpkins/squash etc because they’re biodegradable, rather than buying decorations that will eventually end up in landfill.

FIL grows ours in his allotment.
We used to carve swedes when I was little.