I seem to forget to eat food before it expires all the time. Especially when I am very busy and barely at home for a couple of days. How often do you end up throwing out food and how do you deal with this problem?
I remember quite some time ago, when computers were becoming common, there was talk about intelligent fridges that could keep track of all the food you bought. How come we don’t have anything like that yet? I could imagine just a barcode on the food you bought that you scanned before putting it in the fridge. Then it could just tell you what food was about to expire, so you could eat it. Doesn’t even have to be built into the fridge. You could just have a seperate small device doing this.
When I bring in the new groceries I always do a quick skim through the fridge and throw out anything that’s old, or will become old in light of the yummier choices with which I am now provisioned.
The pantry, on the other hand, probably gets done only once every six months or so.
I usually just throw out stuff whenever I try to use it and discover it’s smelly, fuzzy, or otherwise obviously spoiled. I don’t pay close attention to expiration dates though.
Maybe once a month I’ll go through the fridge to throw out the old leftovers and such which have been hiding in the back of the fridge.
How do I deal with this when I’m busy? Well basically by not buying too much perishable fresh produce and eating lots of shitty non-perishable food.
It’s garbage day tomorrow, which means tonight I do my ritual once through the fridge. We rarely if ever throw stuff out because of expiration dates. Usually there’s some leftover chicken, or beef, or something that doesn’t get completely consumed. Perhaps the odd veggie or two.
They’re inthe works, including plans for onesthat will tell you what you can cook with its contents. Expect one helluva price tag, though.
I’ve been trying to be better about labelling leftovers - there’s a Sharpie and roll of masking tape in a kitchen drawer now - but we have a tried-and-true low-tech method as well:
“Hey, what’s in this tub?”
“What, the sour cream tub? It’s not sour cream?” opens tub “Uhhh … nooo, don’t *think *so.”
"Dammit, I didn’t know we were out of sour cream. writes ‘sour cream’ on the grocery list
“Looks like leftover … refried beans?”
“When in *hell *did we make refried beans?”
“I dunno … a while ago.”
“Like, more than a week ago?”
“For sure. Two weeks, at least.”
“Toss 'em.”
Don’t know when it was made? Can’t pinpoint a day within the last week when it was made? Toss it - maybe the compost pile, maybe not.
Not often enough. We had some left over smoked salmon in the fridge, from xmas. Put it in some eggs we had for breakfast yesterday morning. When we both started feeling a little crampy after breakfast, we looked at the packaging the fish had been in. “Use within 4 days of opening.” It had been closer to 4 weeks.
We don’t do it a whole lot; maybe once a month or so. There are four of us here, which I think helps because then at least one of us will try to eat leftovers. When we get milk, etc., I try to put the bottles that are the oldest in front, so that folks will be more inclined to take them. I consider the expiration dates for dry goods to be more of a guideline than a rule and I’ve ended up using stuff that’s been a year expired, with fairly good results. I don’t really take much of a chance with dairy products, though. If it’s been expired for a couple days, it’s probably fine, but if it’s been a week or more I typically toss it. (Cheese is the exception to this: moldy spots can be cut off and discarded, and the rest of the cheese will typically taste fine.)
Yeah, I search through the fridge twice a week, too. I have a couple of cats who regard trash cans as a combination toy box and pantry (the other two generally stay out of the garbage), so I try not to put any meat or meat scraps in the inside garbage.
I think the OP’s question is more like “what percentage of your groceries end up in the trash because you didn’t eat them in time?”
For us, I’d say between 1-5%. It used to be higher because I tried to be super-efficient, only grocery shopping every 10 days or so with no in-between trips, which lead to buying more than I needed (“just in case”), which lead to food hoarding and waste. About a year ago, I switched to “grocery shopping as needed”, including running in for just one thing (something I had always seen as horribly wasteful in terms of time). Now I probably go to the store 3 times a week, sometimes more, but I spend a LOT less on groceries and rarely waste anything: the last orange may end up in the trash, but I don’t have a pantry full of hoarded dry goods all slowly expiring because I can’t even get to them.
Inevitably there are a lot of fresh foods that spoil in my kitchen – vegetables and meats. I have eaten recently a steak a full month after the “use or freeze by” date, seemed OK, I guess.
I keep foods (mostly vegetables) frozen for a long, long time, and never had any dry goods go bad on me, although I freeze nuts like pine nuts and almonds and also whole wheat flour, just in case.
I agree, usually only once. If it makes it back to the fridge under its own power, then it is getting doused with bleach until it stops squirming and then tossed again.
Funny I should see this thread. When I was grabbing my breakfast and lunch items for work, My hand found a bag in the back of the fridge that turned out to be leftover dressing from Thanksgiving. OK, it was actually a science experiment in progress. Now it’s garbage.
I tend to give food the sniff test unless it’s obviously furry or weird-colored. I’m almost 57 and not dead yet, so I think my method works ok.
I can’t afford to throw food out. I consume things before they expire. I eat lots of fresh vegetables and fruit so it quickly becomes evident when it is going bad. I can eat it or freeze it or cook it and freeze it.
I try to be diligent about buying what I’ll cook/eat, and I hate waste. So, for me I rarely have to throw something out. Also, we got this new refrigerator a couple of years ago that is truly amazing - stuff that would go bad in a week in my old refrigerator will keep for months in this one - I’m talking months! Fresh lettuce, tomatoes - months!
However - my spouse - is a bit of a food collector, impulse buyer, no plans on actually cooking (doesn’t cook) or eating the food. Also, doesn’t do leftovers, just doesn’t. (So, why do we always get doggy bags at the restaurant? One of life’s great mysteries!) Soooooo - if spouse buys any food item there is a much greater chance it will be thrown away at some point. And if I don’t finish off the leftovers - out they go!
“Honey, is this good?”
“Well what is it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it. It looks like… meatcake.”
“Well, smell it.”
(snort, sniff)
“It has absolutely no smell whatsoever.”
“It’s good! Put it back! Somebody is saving it. It’ll turn up in something.”
It really depends on the food. If it’s dairy, I’m more aggressive (but then I seldom buy dairy products). Yogurt, on the other hand, is sort of “bad” anyway, so I’ve kept it an extra week or more after the expiration date and have never had a problem. Veggies, it depends on the veg. If it’s a bruise that grows I’ll try to salvage the good half. I really hate tossing out food and I rarely let food spoil. Bread is one food I monitor closely. I try to keep my eggs “well rotated” (i.e. use them well before the expiration date).
A little inside dope here: I’ve been in the alternative-complementary medicine biz and most vitamins, herbs and other OTC health supplements are dated ridiculously early so as to be on the ultra-safe side, like a year or so before they actually expire, so if you have a bottle of vitamin C in your cabinet whose expiration date is, say, 2/12/11, it’s probably got at least a full year (and then some) to go. OTOH, some Rx meds do lose their potency fairly quickly, and that you can look up on-line or go to some Yahoo or other group about meds. I’ve kept cranberry caps for a full three years after their exp/date, had to use them for a UTI and they worked like brand new. Refrigeration helps, especially with softgels of the fish oil kind
Brief personal story: I bought a huge bottle of aspirin oh, say, 1975, like 250 or more. Since I seldom use aspirin it lasted a long time. A very long time. I’d give them to friends with headaches, room-mates, co-workers. Eventually I only had a few left. They were still working years later. I could tell because when aspirin goes bad it basically turns to vinegar. No vinegar smell, the aspirin’s still good. The expiration date was something like 1977. I finally finished the bottle in 1985, ten years after I bought it. The pills never lost their potency. True story. I had by then then moved a couple of times but I always kept that aspirin bottle,–sort of for the fun of it, to see how long it would keep–and I was very pleasantly surprised. No, I wasn’t impoverished and I don’t have OCD, nor am I a hoarder. I did it out of curiosity. Just thought I’d pass this along in case anyone who reads this thread is preparing to toss out their entire medicine cabinet because everything’s due to expire this spring or summer. My advice: don’t. Save your money.