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!

If the landowners thought it was feasible/profitable to use that land for food production, they’d do so.

Much better to have biodegradable pumpkins as decorations than more plastic tat that ends up landfill

Crops are grown on rotation though. When there is a late crop that can be grown whilst be field would otherwise be empty that’s a better use of farmland, surely?!

I can’t understand why people get so exercised about this in comparison to the horrendous plastic tat usually bought for Christmas/birthdays/etc that ends up at he bottom of he ocean or in a landfill polluting our environment for hundreds of years. In comparison, buying, carving and throwing pumpkins away to rot into the ground is eco friendly!

But they take several months to grow, so will have been occupying these fields since May or June - in other words, during prime growing season!

Also, there are plenty of more worthwhile late crops that could be grown instead...how about potatoes, kale or parsnips?

No one. Because they're not cooking pumpkins.

My chickens are delighted by the pumpkins that grandson brought them this morning. They bought a couple on Thursday, carved them yesterday and back to food today so still nice and fresh.

If you want pumpkins to eat, you need to grow your own. Completely different to those sold for Halloween.

People just look for things to moan about. The people ho have an issue with it, like the poster is probably one of those moany people who dont like or celebrate halloween, so they nit pick at every little thung about it. Misery loves company.

When I found out the truth about Father Christmas I was devastated and remain so 40 years later! These people need to get a life 😂

Agree with growing your own, they are the best to eat, varieties like Delica, Crown Prince and Uchiki. They are a great veg and store really well . Whereas the commercial ones for lanterns are not all that, which is a bit of a shame as they are the ones most kids are familiar with. One year I didn't manage to buy any of the tasty ones as they sold out really quickly, only to find a load of them dumped in the local park after Halloween..

I do get it, because there’s a cost to the environment for a) growing the pumpkins especially when it’s on land that could be used for crops b) transport to retailer and c) transport of the waste product to anaerobic digester by bin lorry if the user doesn’t compost their own. But they don’t always get wasted. We had 5 small-ish ones. Kids scooped out the flesh and seeds, carved them and put them outside with a candle in. I separated out the seeds, baked them with some salt and sunflower oil and then made a thick pumpkin soup with the rest which we ate last night. The carcasses will go on the compost heap after the chickens have finished pecking at them. The only waste going to landfill is the tealight holder.

These were never grown to be food and taste crap so even if they were in the shop and not on this woman’s Facebook - nobody was going to eat them anyway - they are literally grown to be carved

Put them in your food waste - they get turned into biofuel for the buses.

I use carving pumpkins have done every year for about 20 years to make soup. They are fine to use.

Yes, and I think it's bad for them too! Another thing people do without research.

Bad for humans as well tbh

The seeds are a good source of fibre - try them roasted with a bit of oil and seasoning 🙂

I grow all my own pumpkins and the small ones I use after Halloween to make into pumpkin soup 😁 so no farm land used in our Halloween celebrations!

I use all the flesh from ours to make a vat of soup which is then frozen in portions. We did 14 pumpkins this year of all shapes and sizes! We love carving them, we name them and put them around the house until they go manky. The flesh on the carving ones is perfectly edible, it’s just not the optimal flavour and texture. I add a couple of butternut squashes for richness and then the carving pumpkin flesh for bulk. It’s great soup.

Yes - carving pumpkins are edible but not the tastiest. It would be much better for the farms to grow only tasty ones, as the larger varieties still carve well.

We compost our leftover pumpkins. Also carve some turnips so we can eat the inside of those.

It was on the windowsill, so I suspect it was actually a gang of humans …

It’s literally a thread about pumpkins. Nobody cares, but since there’s a discussion about it, people are sharing their opinions.

It seems the people getting worked up and upset are the pro-pumpkins.

All the flesh from ours went into soup, we also dry roasted the seeds and made chili snacks. This morning the carved pumpkins were broken down and put in our compost bin, a mouse was in there and looked delighted when we lifted the lid to drop off.

At my school where I work, the students grew them in plots and used theirs in lesson planning to celebrate Halloween. Not everything is a waste. It was all quite homely, low key and fun.

Do you feel the same about fields of flowers? Those fields could be used for growing food.
I am pretty sure it is up to who owns and tends to the land as to what they grow.