Most composting resources recommend caution when composting food scraps and with good reason. Unlike most yard materials, which are generally, dry, thin, dead or dying, and high in carbon, that is not always the case with kitchen scraps. However, I compost nearly all of my kitchen scraps, including, yes, meat scraps. Food scraps, like some yard materials, just need to be properly prepared, and then added in a reasonable proportion to a properly maintained pile.

To the right is a photo of some banana and grapefruit peels. Note that there is only peel, no banana or grapefruit (well, not much grapefruit anyway!). Note that the peels are skinside down, and that the peels are evenly distributed. This promotes rapid drying, which is the first step in decomposition. Also note that the pile has been made with a recessed center section. If you do not want people to see what is in your pile, is is easy to cover the food scraps with aged compost. Composting food scraps in this way is very low risk, meaning that there will be minimal if any odor, and it will quickly diminish, especially if the peels are exposed to sunshine.

The next photo shows a slightly more extreme example of food composting - there is actually food and not just peels. On the perimeter are sliced apples and in the center are sliced tomatoes. In this case, mockingbirds showed up quickly and ate away the apple and left only the peel. The tomato, being so juicy, quickly dried up and was consumed by earwigs and pill bugs. At times I have taken material like this, put it in the blender, made puree, dilluted it with water, and poured it over the pile. That would be the fastest and lowest risk way to deal with food like this, in case birds are not readily available, but you may or may not want to go to that length. I no longer do. If birds are not around, then it would be a good idea to cover food like this with a layer of finished or at least partially finished compost. You could also chop the slices into bits and distribute them evenly on the pile, but this takes more of your time. It is up to you.

Next is a slightly more extreme example, a Halloween pumpkin that needed to be composted. Compared to the previous food items, the pumpkin is much fleshier and tougher. It will most likely be consumed by insects rather than microorganisms, though if the pile happens to heat up, it will quickly turn into warm mush. Still, there should be no offensive odors regardless of the composting mechanism. I do not have the patience or time to chop the pumpkin into small pieces, so large chunks have to be dealt with. Note that they are place skin-side down in the pile. This will encourage moisture to collect in the concave surfaces. Next, it is important that the chunks are placed well towards the interior of the pile, and covered with a layer of aged material. You would not expect something like this to be processed quickly, so be ready to let something like this sit for a couple months before turning the pile.

Finally, we are ready to discuss the most extreme form of composting - meat scraps. My first experimentation with this was to throw a raw turkey neck into the middle of a dry leaf pile, just to see what happened. After a day, that pile stunk to high heaven! Big mistake! But I did learn the hard way why most compost resources advise against composting meat.

Since then, I have learned to cook the turkey neck and make soup from it, and then, when most of the meat has been stripped, it can be buried deep within a pile in a pocket of aged material. Now I compost chicken bones, T-bones, pork chop bones, etc. with absolutely no problems at all. As long as the meat has been cooked and the bones are free of most meat and fat, when turning time comes I find bones that have been absolutely picked clean. I think this is better than sealing that stuff in plastic and storing it until trash day. My exception is slabs of fat and sometimes poultry skins, though like a thin slice of beef, if a piece of skin is carefully spread out in the center of a pile and covered with aged material then it will be consumed quickly.

I have composted a squirrel carcass successfully. A deceased animal was on the road in front of a neighbor's house and he had to dispose of it somehow. So what the heck, why not try. The squirrel produced an awful odor from ten feet away, yet when buried within a dense pile of aging material, there was no noticeable odor. None of my visitors or guests ever noticed any odor coming from that pile. Six weeks later I harvested the pile and after sifting, did not find a single trace of the squirrel.

In conclusion, it is quite possible to compost fruit, vegetables, and even meat if you know what you are doing. Of course, local environments differ, so you have to use discretion as to what goes into your compost pile. One PilePro owner has told me she enjoys watching deer eat the apple cores from her compost pile; other wildlife may not be so welcome.