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!

I agree it's wasteful and excessive. I make spiced pumpkin soup with ours. The ones grown for carving are perfectly adequate for making soup from, you just need to add onion, a bit of garlic, cumin, garam masala and a little cayenne. Delicious with a drizzle of cream and a crusty loaf.

Today I had a leftover chicken breast, so I make 2 portions of soup. An onion, half a can of cannellini beans, a chunk of baked pumpkin, two tomatoes, garlic, a stick of of celery, chopped chicken and chopped leaves ((minus stalks) from cavalo Nero . It made a delicious dinner.

I do actually! Most of my friends know never to present me with a bouquet. But at least flowers last for a week or so. Pumpkins start to rot very quickly once they have been carved so you have to bin them after only a day or so. It just seems like an awful lot of waste for very fleeting pleasure.

My Husband is an excellent chef, and makes a wonderful soup out of ours (our youngest loves it). He also seasons and dry roasts the seeds, we could all trough too much of if we could. The rinds are given to the horses that share the yard with our teen's therapy horse, who turns up his greedy, spoiled nose at, which is surprising, as he is a greedy old animal who would eat most things if we let him ...The other horses love pumpkin, though :)

Being honest, they are grown specifically for decoration, and they are verging on edible, but only just. You have to add a huge amount of sugar, or fat and flavour to make them even palatable.

Perhaps its just best to see them as like flowers - grown for decoration not food?

Yes hedgehogs cant digest it i don't think and makes them poorly 😢

I will get plenty of use out of the four pumpkins I bought. The seeds are used to eat roasted and some saved to grow next year. Some of the flesh made a lovely soup and the rest has been frozen to make a curry and a vegetarian chilli. Definitely getting my moneys worth out of them.

It’s hardly a waste. Nothing much comes out of a carving pumpkin as they are grown to be bigger. We take ours to the local woodland and leave for the animals, as do many other people in our area.

Carving pumpkins were specifically cultivated to be extra hollow. They aren't good eating pumpkins, except for the animals. As long as you live outside of a busy city, the animals will often eat them for you. Otherwise, compost them if you are that worried.

Pumpkins only rot that quickly if its very warm. They should last a week at least before starting to rot.

Have you tasted pumpkin ? It’s disgusting. Much better to use them as lanterns than as food.

In the 70’s we carved turnips and were forced to eat turnip and mashed potato every Halloween. Maybe that’s the answer.

They shouldn’t do that. It can be bad for some to eat it.

Please don't do that. Don't abandon pumpkin (or anything else) on land you do not own. https://www.forestryengland.uk/news/dumping-pumpkins-the-woods-bad-wildlife-warns-forestry-england-expert

setting aside food preferences ( I loathe anything cabbagey) cooking pumpkins are massively different from carving pumpkins. I agree carving pumpkins taste minging