Wasted Food - How to Stop This Horrible Habit

Question

Seems like there are a lot of us out here having to face the fact that too much food is being thrown out for all kinds of reasons / excuses. If you have conquered this awful problem, please let us know how you did it. Is it some kind of psychological problem, organizational problem or just plain laziness for not taking control of the situation? Do we need to go through some sort of ten step program or what? Be honest with us, we can take it.

Answer

For me the issue was one of buying new food when I should have been eating leftovers, or using up ingredients.
My way round it is to cook in bulk as soon as I have bought fresh food and to freeze leftover portions. That way if I crave pizza there is no food sitting around uneaten - and if I don't want to cook there are always several meals to choose from in the freezer. (I should add that I cook almost exclusively vegetarian food).

Answer

Some of the threads here address this topic: http://www.chow.com/search?query=food+waste&board_name=Home+Cooking&from_date=1+year+ago&search_board_id=31&type=Topic I am sure you will find more if you do an expanded search on leftovers.

I do not waste food, pure and simple. Though I am now on a limited fixed income, I never did, even when I could have afforded to. They say "time is money". So is food. Would you throw money in the trash? My garbage can rarely smells, because there is almost nothing organic in it. (I wash and recycle most food packaging.) It's a combination of commitment to economizing and to the environment, organization, and creativity.

Did the milk go sour? Use it now (or freeze it) for mashed potatoes or for baking a cake or quickbread. Bread get stale or moldy? Cut away the mold. Make home-made bread crumbs (keep in freezer), French toast, or strata. Soupmaking is the ultimate reservoir of leftovers and trimmings.

Answer

I will give this a stab. It took me years to figure out how not to waste food, to be honest. But it takes some determination and discipline.

No food enters the house without a plan for its use. It is fine to be inspired at the market, but then make sure you use that inspiration to get the other ingredients required to use it. Be rational about how much everyone can actually eat. If your family eats a pound of meat at a meal, don't buy 5 lbs if you don't already know how you will repurpose the leftovers into other meals.

If you have three days of food in your fridge, then no deciding at 6pm that you want pizza. You have the food in your fridge and now you actually have to fix and eat it. Seriously look at your calendar before going to the market. If Tuesday is a really busy day and you won't be home until 8:30, acknowledge that either you are pulling something from the freezer that night or getting take out. You won't want to start cooking a from-scratch meal when you get home.

Plan ahead for those days. When you make a pot roast or soup, freeze some extra for "those" nights.

Pick a country cuisine for the week so that the little side dishes can be used over and over, and added to. Perfect example is Indian food. Night one you make a tamarind sauce, the next night you might add some quick pickled vegetables. By committing to a cuisine, you can use all those bits and bobs and still have interesting meals.

Or pick a protein that can be repurposed. The most obvious is a roast chicken. Night one is the chicken with veggies and a starch. Night two is chicken enchiladas. Night three is a soup made with a stock from the carcass.

This is just a start, but maybe it is helpful.

Answer

Keeping your frige clean and straightened up helps tremendously. If you don't lose it, its less likely to go bad before you see it again and can use it.

Make it a habit to thoroughly go through the frige at least once a week, preferably at least twice a week just to see what you have in there and what needs to be used first. Then, plan your meals around those items. Rotate stock as it comes in from the store. 

Buying less to start with helps as well.

Answer

shop less often. i shop daily if i need to. i never buy more than i need. i never have to throw things out.

Answer

Very simple solution to the "by the time I get home it's too late or I'm too hungry to cook" complaint. Cook on the weekend, then reheat. Eat one of those meals when you get home, then at 8 or 9p.m., cook tomorrow's dinner. Always cook extra portions unless it's a dish that is really horrible if not eaten "a la minute". 

The official rules about how long food can be stored in the refrigerator are, for the most part, balderdash.
Two weekends ago I splurged on pre-made sweet-and-sour brisket from the supermarket, because this store makes it as well as I could. It was enough for several meals. I ate the last of it 8 days later, and it was still as good as the day I bought it. I am sure the vinegar helped preserve it, but the food safety police would never approve. 

You think they threw out the wilted produce or moldy-edged cheese and bread during the Great Depression, or anywhere today in poor or strife-ridden areas? Heck no. Germaphobia is for those with deep pockets. Trim and use.

Answer

It is rare that we throw away food. Apart from just hating waste, we just can't afford it.

So, we plan what we're going to eat and shop accordingly. It's not rocket science.

Answer

I'm not that good with solutions, but I do know where my problem lies. I am sooooo easily seduced by good looking food when I'm out shopping, and I often buy things without really thinking through a plan for when to cook them. And I never put anything back once it's my shopping cart. So if I've already selected zucchini for tonight's supper, and then I stumble upon some shiny fresh Japanese eggplant, I'll just add it to the cart. Now I've got 2 vegetables but only the time and inclination to cook one of them tonight, and I don't stop and think that I won't have time to cook the other item this week. And a few days from now when I'm in the market to get milk I'll see some of those sweet little peppers, and thik how nice it would be to roast those sometime time soon. Oh, and such fresh asparagus I see them unloading!

It's like that, all the time. And that's just vegetables. It's true for raw meat, cuts of chicken. etc. The only food I really force myself to cook the same day is fish, but then what to do with the boneless chicken thighs I just took out of the bitcher section, or the ground veal sitting in my fridge at that very moment?

Once food is cooked, leftovers are not really a problem for me. I often cook a lot of different foods at once (trying to use up whatever hasn't rotted away waiting for me to cook it!!), and we're happy to eat leftovers in varying combinations so it doesn't seem like we're having the same meal every night. If it's a food that freezes well, I'll freeze it if there's enough for a real meal. I never freeze small amounts of food because then it just clutters my freezer and doesn't save me from having to cook a meal.

Answer

Food waste isn't a problem in my home, not because we don't toss anything out, but because it's at a reasonable level. We are frugal without being anal about it. Cheap, but not afraid to experiment. If I have to toss something, I make a mental note of it, but there's no funeral. 

If you think waste is a serious problem, may be you should start by understanding why it bothers you. Are you trying to save money? save the earth? be more critical of yourself? deflect criticism? become a better hoarder or misser?

How about making an inventory of what you toss during a week? Focus on the major things at the start, the actions that do most violence to your values. Tossing leftovers that you've grown tired of, or never liked in the first place, is quite different from tossing half a loaf of stale bread. Tossing a few old carrots, or a wilted bunch of cilantro, is different from tossing onion peels, or an eggplant that is too bitter. Tossing something that you buy regularly is different from tossing an experimental buy.

Answer

There are very few things that can't find a place in soup! And being handy with soup-making means that those exhausted post-work dinners can turn into comforting, easy soup & bread meals. Even leftover salad (I remove the wilted lettuce, but some people love that too) can work in soup.

Answer

I found that, since I've cut down on the amount of food I prepare for the two of us, we barely ever have any leftovers anymore. And when we do, we have them for lunch or dinner the next day or the following day.

But I used to make dishes as if I were expecting a family of 8 to be joining us, and there was more waste.

Answer

Based on my observation, I say it is poor planning and/or weighting convenience over necessity.

People buy things which are on sale or in bulk, but they don't really need at the moment. They thought: I will eventually use it. However, that does not always happen and the foods had to be tossed away, so it economically for oneself and for the society. 

I plan my cooking as I shop, so I don't waste a lot. However, I do waste more than when I was young. When I was in college with a very limited budget, I wasted nearly zero. With a very limited budge, I only got to buy what I absolutely needed, and my refrigerator was never more than half full (while living with 2 other roomates).

Answer

Impulse buying, lack of planning, and lack of discipline are a few among the many contributing factors. The best way to eliminate waste can be summed up thusly: buy only what you need to eat in the next "N" days, and then eat it. 

To accomplish this, you need 1) a detailed meal plan for the next "N" days, taking into account what's already in your pantry and what's on sale or will be on sale in your favorite market, and 2) a shopping list for the things you need to accomplish your meal plan and your housekeeping tasks. 

The detailed meal plan will allow you to plan for leftovers, both when to cook them and when to eat them. The shopping list will ensure you buy only what you need, as long as you stick with the list. 

Shopping without a list (and/or not sticking to the list) and without a clear plan of what you're going to cook and eat when is quite likely to result in impulse purchases, purchasing things you already had, and omitting things you need, necessitating another run to the market. 

Shopping without a plan, and preparing meals without a plan often results in the impulse to get pizza or takeout at 6pm (as another poster pointed out), you're too tired to cook, you don't know what to make with what you've got, etc. etc. etc. 

Bottom line, make a plan and make a list and stick with them. you'll save money and time, you'll eliminate or reduce a great deal of stress and you'll eliminate most food waste.

Answer

This is primarily a US problem because of our huge capacity for storing food. I don't know anyone in Europe with a fridge as large as what is in most middle class American kitchens. Having a huge fridge just makes it too easy to lose stuff in there. It also makes it way too easy to buy stuff we're not going to use.

When we moved last month, I found stuff in my old fridge--expensive condiments and such--that I'd forgotten about simply because they got shoved behind other, fresher items. So this has led to my resolution to clean out the fridge once a month (once a week for prepared foods and leftover take-out), and to label everything. It can't go in the fridge or freezer without a name and a date. I really don't want to have to unwrap that foil to find out what's inside.

I have no idea how successful I'lll be in the long run, but so far, the cleaning out process has resulted in much less waste for the past three weeks.

Answer

The thing I end up throwing away is produce that's gone bad. I know exactly why this happens. I go to the grocery store, impulse-buy nice looking fruit/veg and then don't have time to cook it all before it goes off. I'm more conscious of this than I used to be but it still happens sometimes. Leftovers NEVER get wasted in my house - we love leftovers. We're also guilty of having food to prepare and then deciding we're too lazy and ordering in. That happens.

Answer

Just about anything savory can be made into a soup, or a salad. Just add boxed stock to any protein and veggies to make a quick soup, add leftover starches at the end. You can literally make soup in 20 minutes this way, You are only limited by your imagination. I have a friend who uses her leftover nachos to make "tortilla soup" this way, and it's great! The leftover canned tomatoes or tomato paste that you're talking about should be put in the freezer. Freeze in small portions to be added to your spaghetti sauces etc. Leftover bread, in salad makes a killer "Panzanella salad", etc.....Good Luck!

Answer

After reading all this, let me sum it up and let me know if I’m correct. 

- You are retired and on a fixed income. 

-You work part time from time to time and use that money for items that interested you on past grocery trips

- You have extra time for shopping which doesn’t seem to extend to extra time to plan

- You like cooking for others such as the local kids and keep extra food around for that

- You don’t like to eat pre-made meals you freeze because even without trying to reheat them the frozen ‘glob’ looks icky to you

- You are willing to freeze virgin veggies and meats to incorporate into soups

- You buy bargains such as a bag of lemons or apples and only use one or two

- Many times you might only need a portion of something for a recipe such as a half a can of tomatoes and you stash away the rest in the fridge and forget about it. 

- You have chickens that you do feed some stuff going bad. You also have a compost pile

- You have a computer and access to the internet or you wouldn’t be posting here

- You wrote “I don't want to plan the next meal based on that half jar of canned tomatoes...or should I???’

Let me answer that last … yes. 

Otherwise this is nothing but an exercise in food hording without any solution. You will just be storing in a different way and not using anything you store. 

I don’t make lists and shop from them. I buy what looks good and in season and use that. You don’t sound like a person that making a list and sticking to it would be effective. 

How about this? 

1. Week one – shop for what looks good

2. Week two – see what is left in the fridge and plan some recipes around what is there

3. Use Chowhound and search the internet. It isn’t like this site isn’t littered with posts about what to do with half a piece of toast and such. 

4. Before the next trip to the market, make a one-time sacrifice to the food gods. Clean everything perishable out of the fridge you don’t plan to use in the next week and start over. Feed the chickens. Compost. 

Buy what you want week one. Then before going to the market on week two look in the fridge and plan around that leftover can of tomatoes or whatever. Ask on Chowhound. Search the web. 

There are things you seem to think are mistakes that are not. 

Bag of bargain lemons? Keep the one or two you will use and juice the rest. Freeze juice in ice cube trays until you need it. Make lemonade from it when the neighborhood kids stop by. 

Large pork loin? Just cut it up and keep what you will use in the week and freeze the cut up meat for future recipes. 

Bag of apples? They last for weeks in the fridge. Go online and see what to make from them. Apple fritters? Apple butter? Apple cake? Apple juice? Apple sauce … to go with that pork. 

So what if you have a dozen types of rice? It lasts forever. Each week plan one meal around using a bit of one of those rices. 

Vinegar doesn't go bad. Take up pickling. Use it in sodas. ASK on this site how to use it. 

Items like Herbs de Provence with Lavender don’t seem to be impulse buys. You wait until you have part-time job money. Search the web prior to buying and see exactly how you are going to use that. 

If it is a one-time dish, either forget about it or just suck it up and let it room with you the rest of your life on the spice rack. Leave it to an enemy in your will (I say this due to a bottle of lavender salt I bought once. If I had not moved and tossed things, that was my plan for it)

 

Again, if you buy something that you might not like, ask on chowhound for ideas on how to make something out of it. If life hands you lemons … you know.

Answer

I learned an expensive lesson recently, flour beetles or something similar. I had stocked the pantry for hurricane season with cans etc and unbeknown to me a bag of spices that one daughter had brought back from Argentina a year ago was infested and so did my pantry. It's a slow process the spread of those bugs and by the time I noticed it, I had bugs in flour, teabags, rice, pastas, packets and so on. Lots of dried food had to be thrown out and a constant clean of the pantry to rid myself of those pesky bugs.

So New Year's resolution is to not stock up on so much food, to ziplock dried foods, rotate cans and packets more frequently.

I also plan to make 'bang-bang' chicken a few times a year - buy a whole chicken and bang the bottoms of all those salad dressings and other sauces that seem to take up all the shelves in my fridge door. A lot of those dressings nobody likes but they cook up just fine on chicken. Fewer impulse buys from me, no 2 for 1s unless I really use the product like mayo or cans or find someone at work to give the second one to. 

How about food sharing with coworkers or friends, I buy 2 for 1 lettuce this week and friend offers me a 2 for 1 canteloupe next week?

Answer

Try your best and be gentle with yourself.:)

Answer

I think there is no way around being disciplined with respect to meal planning so that you eat up most of what you buy. Portioning, freezing, donating....all decent strategies too.

At my house, leftovers are rarely a problem as we eat them for lunches at school/work. If a meal is a big disaster and no one really likes it, I throw it away immediately so as to avoid cluttering up the fridge excessively. A bigger problem is buying items without a specific plan - I am still working on that problem as I am the main culprit. One habit that is helpful for not forgetting about stockpiled items is keeping a list on the side of the fridge about what needs to be eaten - either leftovers or fresh/frozen ingredients that should be used up. Right now, savoy cabbage, naan, and sour cream are on the list.

Also, I compost all non-meat matter so at least I feel slightly less guilty about throwing away a slimey veg now and then.

Answer

The best way to stop wasting food is to stop wasting it.

Answer

Lots of good ideas here. I also use leftovers that are too old to eat to feed my chickens and pigs. I also put veggie scraps in a compost heap. At least they're not going in the trash.

Answer

cstout, you inspired me to deep-clean my fridge this morning - sorting out, throwing out and wiping down. What I tossed: 1/2 a basket of grapes that I knew were a mistake even when I first bought them (past their season & not too attractive, but my son wanted them), the remains of a can of chickpeas that I forgot to freeze after using the first half, and about 1/10 of a package of fresh coriander. 
Not too bad.
I used to drastically overbuy fruit & veg at the open-air market ("Everything's so cheap - how can I lose?") but have been working at being more realistic about quantities.
Good luck.

Answer

One more thought - you say you grocery shop once a week and it is too far to shop more often. What about shopping LESS often? If it's your habit to go shopping every Thursday, what if you look in the fridge on Thursday morning, see what is left to make a meal out of, and go shopping Friday or Saturday instead? What if you only shop when you really need to instead of just making a habitual trip?

Answer

Planning and spreadsheets are too much for me. Instead I peek in my fridge when I grab a snack and do a quick survey. Has kept my fridge clean for years without much hassle. And I don't impulse buy, because that ends up in wasted food 99% of the time. If there's something exciting I want, I jot it down on the flipside of my shopping list and later make plans for it so the whole enjoyment of it comes from eating it, not the thrill of buying it. 

I think very few things when I peek:

1. tomorrow is garbage day, let's chuck that thing before it molds because no matter how I kid myself I know it's not going to get eaten and when it surfaces again it will be too scary to touch
2. half a jar of pickle relish, I'm not buying hot dogs, I'll make tartar sauce and pick up some fishsticks or something
3. chop that last piece of bbq chicken and toss it in the freezer to save for a pizza
4. ugh who put the veggies there, they always freeze! I'll throw them in soup tomorrow
5. yay! enough stuff to make yummy fried rice!

The only problem is that one cannot just hope it will manage itself. You have to have a goal of managing your fridge and try things until you find what works for you. Don't wait to do it until someone tells you the perfect solution, just start doing little things and it will come together over time for you. Stop making up reasons and excuses, it does nothing but prolong the agony.

Answer

I cringe when I have to throw away food. Over the years I've came up with a few ideas. 

1. Give it back to the earth - invest in a composter or create a compost pile. I now am okay if fruit and veggies ate passed,

2. Invest on a food saver - the new ones are pretty cool and it saves food up to two times longer

3. Brunch at home - brunch in restaurant speak means using leftovers up why not do this at home - Tuesdays Greek night turns into a Greek omelet, etc. 
4. Have a plan - last nights steak can turn into a burrito, same ingredients different recipes

Answer

Today I got this Culinate newsletter with tips from Jonathan Bloom about wasting less food.

http://www.culinate.com/articles/culinate8/jonathan_bloom_personal_food_waste

I think this thread may have already touched on most of the tips. If you are interested in the topic of waste and haven't read it already, I highly recommend Bloom's "American Wasteland" which is ALL about waste at all steps of the food chain. http://www.americanwastelandbook.com/

Also, cstout, I really appreciated your turnip tale. Sometimes spiritual (vegetal?) moments come when we least expect them.

Answer

This post and a lot of the responses really surprise me. I can't remember when I've ever thrown food away. I'm not that great of a planner, but I think I like the challenge of putting scraps of this or that together into meals, or trying to see how many different dishes I can get out of 1 chicken or 1 large roast. 

We buy most of our meat and poultry in bulk from neighbors (half pig/cow at a time) and get eggs from another neighbor, plus we grow and put up lots of veg and fruits. Maybe that makes us more aware of what's in the fridge or pantry, I'm not sure. 

I think it's great that you posted, and that you realize it's something worth trying to do better.

Answer

I have a half package of bacon in the fridge that is just begging me to make Pasta Carbonara (which reheats beautifully). Alas, I have other leftovers to finish before I can make a new dish. 

And THAT is how you don't waste food.

Answer

I've been fighting this battle for awhile, and I think I've gotten quite a bit better. I still have a way to go though. If anyone has any tips for excess herbs, please pass them on! I'm worst with restaurant leftovers, especially since I usually receive a giant portion, and it NEVER seems to heat up well.

-Meal planning: make sure you plan in some flexibility. I began to painstakingly plan out every meal of everyday of the week (even breakfast) only to realize that things can change. Sometimes I end up going out, or having people over, or I just don't want the thing I planned to eat. Now, I try to build this into my schedule. Having some meals you can move around a bit, or drop entirely, is useful. Maybe this isn't such a big deal for people with big families and more fixed schedules, but it works for me.

-Buy quality. I'm much less likely to waste when I know I've spent quite a bit on an item.

-I never used to waste herbs when I had an herb garden. I don't have quite enough sunlight to do this now, but it's probably an option for others.

-If you want to save food for a rainy day, try frozen, dried, or canned. 

-Realize it's an uphill battle. We live in a culture that treats items as disposable that really shouldn't be disposable. I've been working on this for awhile, and while I'm great in some areas (I never buy clothes from "fast fashion" places like H&M anymore), I'm still not awesome in others (iPhone apps I use once, too big restaurant meals where I never eat the leftovers, using far more plastic than I should, etc.). Just keep working! Doing a little better is better than doing the same as always!

Answer

I read about half of the responses then skipped to the bottom. I am in the same boat. I am a single guy who has a 206 mile daily commute, so better than 12 hours a day are dedicated to work. I love food, and cooking, but I find it hard to cook for just myself. This year I have tossed pounds of potatoes and tomatoes, jalapenos, cilantro , green onions, and radishes by the bunch. Celery, ears of corn, lots of squash, and more. Being single can be very difficult when it comes to food purchases. The single serving can be so much more than bulk at times that it is actually less expensive to buy the bulk, use only what you need, and toss the rest. I have a hard time making single servings of most meals, so I eat a lot of leftovers when I do actually cook. A batch of chicken fajitas will last me a couple of meals, or more. When I make potato salad I end up with upwards of 20# in a 13qt bowl. I save some for me, and give the rest away to grateful neighbors. Later on they will reciprocate by sending over homemade items from their kitchen. I have been thinking of maybe starting a group for folks like me where we can get together for meals, and sharing the food. I find that I will have time to cook , if I am cooking for someone else. I made 6 totally scratch pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving, and 7 for Christmas this year to take to friend's homes. BTW a 15# pumpkin will yield 7- 9" pies. 

I have a grocery store in town, but they don't have everything that I am looking for at times The next closest cities are 40, and 60 miles from me. I do most of my shopping on the weekend when I run into Las Vegas as the prices are so much less expensive. When you consider what I have tossed, the price isn't that good on some items. What I have done lately is to just really cut back on how much I buy at the market. I tell myself "You didn't use what you had bought earlier, so don't buy more." or "You didn't have time to cook that meal last week, what makes you think you will have time this week?". I have a lot of meals that I want to cook, but end up not because I get home late,too tired, or I am gone all weekend trying to have something resembling a social life in Las Vegas. I may be buying too much of some items because I know I cannot just run into town for this during the week due the distance involved.

 Lunch today was a Florida avocado that I had forgot about made into guacamole, and the tail end of a bag of tortilla chips. 

 Lunch at work a lot of days consists of just pears, oranges, apples, mangoes, avocados, or bananas. One coworker thought I was vegetarian. I told him that I was not a vegitarian, but that I was a vagitarian.

Old bananas get frozen , or get used for banana bread. Most everything else gets tossed into the compost pile if it gets over ripe, or spoils. My meat intake has gone way down over the past couple of years, so little meat is wasted. I can buy a 40# case of boneless skinless chicken breasts for $1.28-$1.50 a pound at times, and they will last a long time in the freezer. I am not too germaphobic so I have no problem trimming mold off bread ,
trimming veggies of spoiled sections, and I have consumed countless weevils? that are too much trouble to sift out of the flour,and other dry goods. My folks lived through the Great Depression, and did the same. Could also be a reason why I rarely have any food illnesses, built up resistance maybe? 

I have now learned to dry extra chili peppers , Roma tomatoes, and should do cilantro too. If I have extras of something that I know I won't use in time I give them to neighbors, if they can use them. It is tough to pass up 8# of oranges for $1, cilantro, green onions,and radishes for 4 for a $1, avocados for 5 for a $1 (although I have sold these for a profit at work), etc. I have also learned that during the summer months I cannot keep some items like potatoes long due to the heat. 

Since my job has relocated to Utah I have had to revamp my grocery purchases, and it has taken some time to get readjusted to the monotony of the new commute. And to answer the question of why don't I move closer to work..............Southern Utah is not the place for a single guy to be. Socially repressed pretty well sums up S.UT for me. It was fine when I commuted into Las Vegas, as I had something to do every evening after work. Not so in Utah. I also have 2ac in a semi rural town that I actually feel like a part of a community as opposed to just being a resident. Hopefully 2012 will be better for me , as I am looking to start another business that I can run from where I live , and still be just an hour away from Las Vegas for fun. Until then I just need to realize that I cannot cook everything that I want to, and put the item back on the shelf. It is somewhat ironic that I , a guy who abhors waste is so wasteful at times. I guess I can look at it this way, I have some really nice compost going in the pile.

Answer

I spent years cooking just for myself so I am very good at using up what I have to prevent waste. May I suggest thinking of the food as "components"? When cooking mushrooms (bought on special-too many to eat in one night), cook all of them at the same time and then tuck the extras into the fridge for a mushroom omelet tomorrow. Chicken breast on special but only in the family size pack-no problem! Roast all of them with salt and pepper and freeze the extras in individual portions for quick meals like warm chicken sandwiches or green chili chicken stew (easy way to use up that green salsa jar you opened on the weekend). I just shop from my fridge and if I am stumped I use an ingredients search engine to help come up with ideas.

Answer

Just out of curiosity, was this thread brought about by the appearance of the documentary "dive" that has recently appeared on the netflix streaming service? Just curious, the timing seems coincidental. 

http://www.divethefilm.com/

Answer

My biggest struggle is not knowing if i am cooking for three or five. I used to just alwyas assume that everyone will be eating the meal i prepared, even if it was later that night... but too many covered dishes wound up eiter in the trash or frozen as a tv dinner. I decided that since the two other people in my house are adults, that the can fend for themselves for dinner. Now i know exactly how much to cook every night. I am a huge proponent of weekly menus too. They have saved me LOTS of money.

Answer

Thought ya'll might find the cookbook described in this article to be helpful on this topic -- sounds like a great read, and I think its message of simplifying cooking is one that everyone can get behind . . .

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/a-recipe-for-simplifying-life-ditch-all-the-recipes/?hp

Cheers!

Answer

I just faced a major financial set back so buying more food was a challenge. I ended up eating what I had on hand and buying food only when necessary. I used leftover meat from dinner over leftover rice and a fried egg for breakfast. Friday night pizza w/ leftover veggies, cheese and chicken or lunch meats. Lots of things sauteed is great on pasta. I doctor up campbell's soups. I freeze what I can, bring perishable foods to share at lunch or give to friends (friends are on budgets too) periodically donate non perishable goods I don't eat to the break room kitchen. If I get food from a restaurant, I get enough for a couple of nights or lunches.

Answer

Funny I was thinking about this and thought of something that sounds counter-intuitive... eat less at dinner. 
Dont have a second helping. Instead, pack it up and eat the second smaller portion for lunch the next day.

Answer

Wow. Thank you for starting this thread cstout. I had the chance to read over all posts throughout the day and was so inspired I decided enough is enough! We too throw out lot of food. Many of the reasons why have been stated amongst others on here. In fact, I've know that a huge package of brussel sprouts in my fridge were headed for the garbage for few days now and I just lazily sat back, by passing them, letting them make their way to the back of the fridge. I buy the large Costco size at Costco and usually only eat 1/2 the bag throwing the rest in the garbage. And I do this about once every 3 months. Why??? I decided to fry 80% of them up tonight with some onion, garlic and a little orange juice to steam and they were wonderful. I steamed the rest and froze them to have with lunches later. I then made a list of everything in the fridge that was close to it's prime and put a date beside when they should be used. I then made a quick "meal ideas" list right beside just to give me an idea of what we can eat and make. Hubby loved this idea. We were doing something similar to this just before we moved to our new house. My motivation was I didn't want to haul a bunch of jars let alone perishables in the move. Well, unless we plan on moving every 3 months, I think we'd better get on board of the "waste not" train and rethink how we shop and cook. 

I love, love, love the idea of making stocks (D'uh, why am i NOT doing this?!), I love the idea of making trip-around-the-fridge soups (like my Dad used to) a couple of times a month. Freezing unused veggies. Not buying until the fridge is relatively cleaned out or freezer for that matter. This should help with the grocery bill or at least give us the opportunity to by smarter food. There's a huge Farmer's market close to where we live. We have to hit the place Saturday, early, to get ahead of the crowds. We NEED be going there. We NEED to start buying local. And using food to it's full extent we can afford this.

Answer

I have always frozen individual portions of leftovers. When our kids were young an appreciated family dinner was "Leftover Night" when all of these came out of the freezer to be reheated and make a buffet from which everyone chose his favorites. Horse-trading ensued, eg "I'll split my meatloaf with you if I can have half of your baked beans...Okay, you can have the shrimp but then I get the apple pie".

Answer

I think one very easy way to cut back on waste is to make sure that if possible you keep the sauces and what ever they are topping separate. That way you can freeze and save a sauce and use it with something else. Also, many sauces keep better than the things they are topping, for instance pasta.

Answer

For those of you interested in learning more about this topic, I noticed that Food Network is actually doing quite a bit on the subject, including this special, which airs tomorrow night: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food-network-specials/the-big-waste/index.html.

Answer

OK so to start, I threw out some freezer-burnt things from my freezer last weekend....I wasn't going to eat them so why take up space....

So far, I've eaten a lot of my leftovers this week and have frozen others for future use. This month is a tough time at work, but managed to make a GREAT stir fry this week & use up leftover veggies so as not to toss them....

Still want that new freezer tho....

Answer

First week behind us and we went to the grocery store today (we shop weekly), aaand... down $20 from a normal bill. Whoo Hoo. Fridge is clean out nicely so, now to see if we can make it the week without having to stop somewhere for extra reserves. Really, really excited about that savings.

Answer

I would also suggest opening up yourself on two fronts: try different combinations (am eating peanut butter and sriracha on spelt toast right now -- delicious! -- because I wanted to use up the peanut butter) and realize that almost *any*thing can be made into a salad. I have become very astute at making salads, and I put pretty much everything in them but the kitchen sink (though they always include cheese and some sort of nut, be it walnut, pepita, or sunflower seed -- something for crunch). I also do the same with couscous or quiinoa -- you can mix pretty much anything in, and add vinaigrette, and it's pretty damn tasty. 

Other thoughts: I tend to find it much easier to use things up when I buy less -- it's so much less overwhelming to have a half-empty refrigerator. As a single person, I also "trade" leftovers with various friends -- not on any sort of organized basis, but I've found that friends love having homemade soup, and I love getting pork tenderloin that I wouldn't necessarily cook for just me. I picked up a bag of basmati rice from a friend this morning who wasn't going to use it, because she doesn't eat rice (she'd bought it for a dinner party and had an entire bag left over).

Answer

My New Years resolution was to quit wasting food. I love to cook, my husband shops, and its not always easy matching the refrigerator contents to my cookbooks. So - I bought a subscription to "eat your books". Broccoli languishing in the vegi drawer - I can see all the recipes that use broccoli, and what other ingredients they require. Easy peasy.
I also have a new rule about labeling leftovers. I'm using that blue painter's tape (comes off easily), and a sharpie - date and name. Hopefully these changes will last, but I do already see more leftovers being eaten than being tossed.

Answer

I just found this interesting menu -- appetizers through dessert -- that uses all of those food bits that often get overlooked as "waste." Each dish builds off of a common list of ingredients. The menu includes: 

Vanilla-Bean-Old-Fashioned 
Crostini with Mushroom-Stem Duxelles 
Braised Greens and Cauliflower Ribs with Piave-Bacon Breadcrumbs 
Pasta Scraps with Burrata, Sausage, Mushrooms and Fennel 
Candied-Orange Shortbread 

Sounds heavenly!

Answer

Pre-plan menus.
 Don't buy a week's worth of groceries at a time, if plans change, food will spoil.
Vitamix leftover fruit and vegetables into smoothies or soups

Answer

The single step that reduced food waste in this household most was learning to do weekly or half-weekly cooking plans, and make shopping lists based on the plan. The planning even helps rescue from impulse buys at the farmers' market or grocery, if I sat down and incorporated the unexpected items in the week's plan right away.

Another big help was learning to cook up greens within the first day of arrival: they take up less room in the fridge, they stay usable longer, and it shortens prep time at the point that they get incorporated into a dish.

Answer

I've dramatically reduced my food waste, and my weight, by planning out a week's worth of meals, shopping and prepping on the weekend. Yesterday I made a big batch of vegetarian moussaka and prepped a bunch of vegetables for stir-frying through the week. I also cooked whole-wheat couscous to serve with the stir-fry. And, I washed raspberries and froze them for use in smoothies later. During the meal planning phase I looked at what I had on hand that I wanted to use up (the whole-wheat couscous, a bunch of carrots, canned chickpeas... the first and the last being things I'd stocked up on when they were on sale), chose recipes that would use those ingredients, and then only bought the things I needed to complete the recipes. The raspberries were a sale buy, but they're now safely in the freezer. I didn't need to buy snack food- when yogurt was on sale last week I put two containers in my fridge at work for snacking, and when I'm home I can "snack" on stuff I have anyways, like bread (straight out of the freezer) toasted with natural peanut butter.

I definitely don't do it all the time (I get too excited about new recipes), but every now and then planning your meals with the purposeful goal of using up some of the non-perishables you've collected over the past few weeks or months is really helpful.

Answer

As much as I despise adding to topics this long because they take a lot of time to load and when they get this big, usually people don't read the whole thing and add repetative info, i thought you ight be interested in this blog

The Zero Waste Home

http://thezerowastehome.com/

Mainly it has to do with packaging, using containers and such. However, there are some dining tips and one hit me as particularily useful ... keep things in Mason jars and don't buy something new until you finish the old jar. 

So, she has two pasta jars with two different types of pastas. Only when one jar is empty, will she buy more pasta. 

I think you could apply that to stuff in the fridge as well. There are some interesting ideas on the site.

Answer

The best way not to waste food is to eat less. When the end product is obesity, the food is being wasted. I see so many refrigerators and pantries bursting with food and the occupants of the house are correspondingly roly poly. Even if the food is not being wasted by being left to spoil or thrown out, it's not socially responsible to buy so much and eat so much.

Answer

I have some suggestions on reducing food wastage, the levels of which are scandalous in N America. I roast a chicken, put the bones in the freezer if I know I will not have time to make a stock the next day. The leftover meat is good in sandwiches and Asian salads (Vietnamese red cabbage salad with slices of chicken, or a Thai type salad with added chicken come to mind). I avoid buying food in bulk, and buy fresh as much as possible. I buy local and in season whenever possible (although hard in the deep freeze of January and February, so it takes getting used to and sometimes I am not so disciplined). My pantry has certain staples, from which I always will have a meal on hand. Other tips: parsley makes a good tea, believe it or not, and helps reduce water retention, so there goes my leftover parsley! oh, I love Chowhound! Where else can I read about vagitarians?

Answer

OK so this past weekend I got my pantry cleaned out & straightened up. I threw out a bunch of stuff, Freecycled what I could & sent my stepdaughter home with a bunch of stuff also. I put my "like" with "like" items and my pastas in baskets so they don't pile up & fall all over the place like in the past. Now I can see what I have so I won't overbuy like in the past.

Freezer is next!!

Answer

I'm still struggling to find ways to reduce food waste, but one key thing has made a big impact for me, and it's a healthy dose of reality.

While I may WANT to be culinary wizard night after night, I don't have the energy 5 nights a week to cook the way I'd like to. After months of throwing out food that didn't get prepared before it went bad, I started to plan 1-2 more involved meals a week and fill the rest in with "easy, simply to make" staples.

I made a list of things I can throw together without a ton of effort: Handmade cheeseburgers, tacos, grilled cheese and supermarket soup. I get a rotisserie chicken that I can shred and mix with brown rice, black beans, chopped tomatoes and avocado - I can nuke/assemble that in 5 min and it's amazing. 

I've also found 2-3 GOOD crockpot recipes that don't require 18 steps in the morning; these throw together quickly, and tend to make a decent amount (which I can freeze or plan for leftovers....in which case I could it for two meals up front.)

I'm now trying to conquer produce - it's the toughest for me to avoid. I'm trying to adjust my thinking - I'll buy ONE and IF we use that one, I'll go get another one. The grocery is one block away. Instead of a bag of onions, I buy 2 single onions. It's a slow adjustment, but I'm learning.

My other sin is cooking like I"m feeding 8, and I'm trying to restrict to only that which I need to feed us for ONE night. If I made a bulk meal, I plan to freeze half. I mark them, and those are the things I pull out to stack the fridge for my husband with if I'm going away for a weekend.

Answer

How to reduce food wastage aka food that gets pitched out because it has gone bad so you can't use it (vice leftovers which are used, or overconsumption which means eating til you're stuffed day after day after day)....I've done this successfully since my kitchen reno a few years ago. Here's what worked for me:
1. Storage space is the tool of the devil. Seriously. Pantries while convenient and great mean that you can stuff huge amounts of bulk sized food items out of sight and out of mind and forget about them til either the mealy bugs hatch or you discover them years later. Less storage space means things are out in the open and must be used. 
2. Hand in hand with this -- buy what you need in the amounts that you need. Biweekly shopping may be required, sometimes daily shopping, but given our car culture, it isn't that hard to hit a grocery store on the way home from work more frequently than you are now.
3. Amount matters -- realize that even though a smaller package of product X may be slightly more costly than a supersized package, it is cheaper in the long run to buy a smaller package and use it all vice a supersized package that has over half of it thrown out, I know for us, mayo is the bane of our existence. I eat it twice a year, in potato salad made on 1 July (yay CANADA Day!) and in potato salad made on Labour Day. I buy a small jar even though it costs more that a supersized bulk foods jar now and use it all whereas in previous years, I'd get the supersized jar (so cheap!) and it would expire before even 1/4 of it was used. Most would get pitched as it was out of date by the following year. Now I buy in the amounts that I need. This is where your bulk foods store comes in handy -- you CAN buy the amounts you need and often not at a huge premium.
4. Plan your meals. If you have completely unrelated meals night after night after night, you'll be pitching alot of stuff as in half-full jars of tomatos and so on. Plan a few tomato-based meals to use up the left over tomatoes/tomato paste jars in the fridge. Don't pitch them out.
5. Get a small fridge! Large fridges are hiding spots for left overs. Small fridges force you to make meals in appropriate quantities and eat them all before you can wedge more into the fridge.
6. Be judicious with the recipes -- I know that recipe X calls for 1/2 tsp of Hot Chili Sauce, but if you aren't using the Hot Chili Sauce regularly, you'll have a jar hanging around forEVER and will inevitably be pitched. Internet research for substitutions to specialty items.Think about the recipe, and decide if that 1/4 tsp celery salt is REALLY going to make a difference before buying and storing it and pitching it out down the road. Less wastage. 
7. Fresh fruit and produce -- buy as needed. I don't know why, but bulk produce I buy from Costco inevitably goes horribly south 3 days after I buy it. A great deal, but so much wastage. I buy what I want as I need it. No 10 lb bags of potatoes (unless I'm doing perogies), no 10 lb bags of onions. No huge bags of lemons. I get what I need as I need it.
I'm sure most if not all of this has been stated in some form in the previous 333 responses, but this is just my 2 cents worth!
:)

Answer

I've never thrown away any food, unless it went bad. 

I didn't know other people did that. I never would have conceived that anybody would do that. 

This discussion has been a real eye opener. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised though. Some people have suboptimal habits.

Answer

The most commonly "wasted" items in my kitchen? leftover amounts of ingredients purchased for projects or recipe testing. Such as the 3/4 cup of custard which didn't fit in the trifle bowl; or the 1/2 pint of half and half from the cream sauce last week. It's all well and good to freeze some items, but I still had chocolate buttercream stashed, 2 years after the event it was made for. A lot of the recipes I test are for work, and may not be foods I would normally eat at home.

Answer

Usually this happens if you go to shop without note what to buy.When i started to write note win home what i really need.I almost never bought too much.

Topics

Locations

Your post has been published!

Wasted Food - How to Stop This Horrible Habit

More from Chowhound

Food News

Win Game Day with These Vegetarian Party Nachos

Recipe Round-Ups

11 Ways to Gussy Up Guacamole for Game Day

Recipe Round-Ups

Quick and Easy Instant Pot Breakfast Recipes for Less Morning Stress

Entertaining

Easy Shortcuts To a (Mostly) Homemade Valentine's Day Dinner

Trending Discussions

What should I look for when it comes to buying a commercial grade vegetable dicer?

Where are you on Synthetic/Cultured Chicken?

February 2021 Cookbook of the Month NOMINATIONS

What's For Dinner #447 (January 2021) - Happy New Year!

What cookbooks have you bought or do you want? Early 2021 edition!

Quick Links

Latest Discussions

Cookbook of the Month

Dish of the Month

Weekly Menu Planning

Get fresh food news delivered to your inbox

January 2021 Cookbook of the Month: VEGAN JAPANEASY & JAPANEASY

Chowhound

Policies

Community

Editorial

Content