What percentage of pumpkins grown in America are thrown away?
Asked by
slacy (
8
)
November 4th, 2009
After Halloween, one must wonder:
Of all pumpkins grown each year in the United States, what percentage of them are thrown away versus cooked and eaten (as pie or somesuch).
Are most pumpkins grown for canning grown the US?
Are most supermarket pumpkins grown in the US?
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11 Answers
All of ‘em, sooner or later!
I want to say most of them, but all those cans of pumpkin pie filling must come from somewhere. But actually I’d guess probably around as many as 50% of them get smashed to bits on Halloween.
Well, we always bake our pumpkin seeds. Never attempted to make pumpkin pie, but might this year. The rest of them get put in our garden as fertilizer. None of them just get thrown into the garbage, though.
Ya butt even if you eat it, it DOES get thrown away eventually!
Probably a lot are wasted, as I’ve read the pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns aren’t very tasty for pies..the seeds are fine though.
We just got some pumpkins today to decorate…we missed out on the month of October festivities from everyone in my family having the flu, so we’re making up for it. They were so cheap!
Remember that are more than one kind of pumpkin. Sugar pumpkins are the ones grown for food. They are primarily used to food. The gourds that we carve and decorate with are not for eating. Although they eventually end of thrown out, they are at least biodegradable and have served a purpose.
The pumpkins we carve end up looking so nasty by the time Halloween is over, you couldn’t pay me enough to eat them!
I do buy some sugar pumpkins each year and use them for pies, breads, and muffins. I just cooked, pureed, and froze two of them yesterday! I hadn’t thought about composting our Jack-O-Lanterns though, but I think in a few days I’ll hack them up and mix them into the garden. It should make an interesting combination with the rabbit-litter-fertilizer I’ve got going on!
Look on the bright side…at least it’s organic material; they decompose and become part of the earth again.
I’d be afraid to eat a pumpkin that was sitting on my porch for a week or so.
I live 5 miles from Morton, IL. It’s home to Nestlé/Libby’s pumpkin packing plant, where over 80% of the world’s canned pumpkin is processed. You should see all the trucks coming into town during the harvest. It’s a beautiful site!
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