“I Eat A TON of Produce” – The HalfAHuman and Brisingamen Intelligence Collaboration

Hello.
I am very excited for this.
“I eat a ton on produce.” [vegetable | fruit | nuts | etc.]
Who has ever heard this? Who has ever said this? I have. I say it a lot. But think about it; a ton is 2,000 pounds.
Elephants eat between 200-600 pounds of food a day. (What a range). And they are vegetarian. (per Google)
Giraffes eat about 75 pounds of food a day. (per Google)
Cows eat about 25 pounds of food a day. (per Google)
Sheep eat about 5 pounds of food daily. (per Google)
Humans eat between 3-5 pounds of food a day. (again, per Google).
5 pounds x 365 days = 1,825 (2020 is a leap year…)
So it is possible to eat a ton of produce in a year, but not probable.
However, I wonder if a three person household would bring 2,000 pounds of produce in to their home to consume during all of their meals – including the meals that they entertain guests during – throughout the year.
Let’s find out.

Yes. I could just weight out all of the produce that comes in to my house – but where is the fun in that? For those of you that know my husband – you know this would just not do! Enter Brisingamen Intelligence. Brisingamen Intelligence is my husbands business. He does business intelligence. And even though he could give you an in depth speech as to exactly what he does all day – I will tell you for this project, he is going to take collected data and make it usable for the reader, ie. YOU! Our goal is to take all of the produce information that we collect and make a usable dashboard for our readers, so that you can see how much produce we bought, of that what is fruit and vegetable, of that what is a bell pepper and of that the weight of bell peppers and how many. This will hopefully end up being an interactive site for you to use to track our produce purchasing and usage.

We are working on the final details of what piece will be classified as what.
We are ending our brainstorming on the data that needs to be collected.
Luke (my husband) will start working on the dashboard model shortly.
We should have something for you to play with by the end of March. Hopefully sooner, but end of March at the latest.

It the meantime, let me explain some guidelines:
-I have “grandfathered in” or “legacy” food I purchased at the end of 2019 (see my last post – 23 bags of salad…). I have weighed and counted these items and they will be counted in our 2020 tally. Because this is to see if our household consumes a ton of produce.
-We will be keeping track of Fresh, Frozen, Canned/Jar/Bagged produce.
-Examples of produce that will be included are pickles and olives.
-Examples of produce not included are salsa, spaghetti sauce & juice.
-If apples and carrots come in a 2 or 3 pound bag, they are being recorded as such.
-If the can of black beans says 16 ounces, it is being recorded as such. I will not be draining the beans and weighing them.
-In case of foods like watermelon and avocados and bananas, I will be weighing the whole “fruit”. Correct, I do not eat the peels, rinds and pits, but it is way to much of a mess to weight out only the usable portions. Besides – the peels, pits and rinds are usually fed to my pets (my dogs beg for everything) or thrown outside for the outdoors creatures to eat. (We have quite a scurry/dray of Ratatoskrs (squirrels) in our tree and yard).
-Nuts and seeds, if they still have their shell on, will be weighed with their shells.
-Our intention is to have produce classified in two ways, common acceptance (a tomato, cucumber and pumpkin are a vegetable, not a fruit) and with traditional botany rules.
-We will keep track of the produce that we purchase/bring in to our living area. If we are at home, that is a given. If we are on the road for Luke’s work, we will bring the scales to measure everything as best we can. If we are invading Luke’s relatives’ home in Colorado and I raid Sprouts grocery store – we will keep track of that too. We will also keep track of the random extra head of cauliflower that my mother drops off at my house – but we will not keep track of the weight of the cheesy potatoes that my brother’s girl friend volunteered to bring to our home for the next get together. See what I am saying? We also will not track the cherry tomatoes that my parents bring to the zoo that we eat during our picnic lunch. Those will have to be freebies.
-I am going to try and get a count on some foods, not just the weight. Things like apples, bananas, melons, bell peppers and onions interest me. Berries and grapes – not happening!

We are thinking very positively about this project. I hope to give you at least monthly updates on weights of the produce. I want this to be interesting and inspiring! Please, get something out of this, even if it is just odd curiosity around the number of bell peppers and onions that pass through our door way.
And! Just for the fun of it – we are going to keep track of how many eggs come to the house this year.

Is there something you are interested in finding out with the help of this project?
What would you like to see on the dashboard?
Do you think we will reach a ton of produce in 1 year? (Remember – I eat pumpkins each fall…I’m hoping we get 2,000 pounds of produce in before the end of the year)!
Let me know what you think!
Wish me luck and have a great one!!
: D