We used to be really bad at planning meals, coordinating the shopping and eating out. Now we are much more disciplined - before the shopping list is written, an inventory of the fridge, freezer and cupboards is made, with meals planned based on what we already have. Only then do we look at how many more meals we need, and what ingredients we need for them.
We shop on a weekly basis so never have more than a week’s worth of fresh food. If we unexpectedly eat out one night, the meals just get pushed out a day.
I also plan meals around eating fresh foods earlier in the week, moving to frozen/canned/pantry foods later in the week.
I recently had a bottle of soy sauce spill in the pantry. No one noticed, of course, until the next morning, when everything on three shelves was sitting in a thin layer of soy sauce. I used that opportunity to go through the pantry and check expiration dates. I tossed a fair amount of stuff, including a bottle of sesame oil (?) with an expiration date in 2004. So, apparently my answer is, “Once every seven years.” Yikes!
The fridge, on the other hand, gets rummaged through once a week or so to weed out anything questionable.
Since we eat almost exclusively fresh food I lose things to old age all the time. Potatoes especially. There’s just 2 of us, but a 5-lb bag costs less than 3 individual potatoes. SoI buy the 5lb bag, plan to eat about half & pitch the other half when their eyes get bigger than mine. I hate the idea of wasting food, but I hate the idea of wasting money even more.
And semi-annually or so I go through the fridge looking for half-eaten jars of long-expired olives or ketchup or …
I am extra-poor right now, but even when I’m not strapped for cash I just hate wasting food because it’s like throwing away money to me. I eat, or take home and eat, every last scraping of any food when I eat out. I’m really diligent about keeping on top of what’s in my fridge and using up the last little bit before I buy another carton, etc. I freeze a lot of the fresh food I buy and plan meals ahead of time.
Those people annoy me. Most that I know consider eating a product ‘disgusting’ after it’s sell-by date. :dubious: I know I have a more relaxed disgust-reflex than most humans, but that’s just crazy. And really wasteful. I guess my parents trained me well, I just hat to see food go to waste in general…
Let’s just say that I bought a package of hot dogs when I moved into my last place and then threw them out, unopened, after a year and some harassment from my girlfriend.
But, if your house has a giant wooden fork and spoon hanging on the wall only for decoration purposes you get a pass. If your abobe has an axle and wheels you its kinda exected. If your abode has an axle but you sold the wheels its actually a legal requirement to store foodstuffs that way.
Once a week on garbage day, I always check the fruit and veggie drawers for anything starting to get mushy. I need to do a check on all dates of opened jars. That hasn’t been done in at least a month.
We don’t waste a lot of food. The only things that usually end up getting thrown out are the leftovers that my husband forgets to take to work for lunch (we make extra so he can do this).
We go through the fridge twice a week (garbage day and grocery day) to throw things out. We check the infrequently used condiments about twice a year and go through the pantry at that time, as well.
All in all, we try to spend as little as possible on groceries (it is our biggest variable expense) so that means little to no waste.
If you get some chickens, you will never have to throw produce away again. Anything past its prime is given to our hens, who dutifully turn it into fresh eggs.
Less than 5% gets tossed around here. It used to be higher, but we’ve gotten on an efficiency kick and started pre-planning menus to a much higher degree than we used to. Now stuff will be used in at least two dishes before we put it on the shopping list. Periodically I’ll inventory the pantry and pull out all the stuff that had gotten “lost” and it goes into that week’s menu planning. We’ve saved a pretty penny doing this, not to mention becoming more aware shoppers.
Chickens eat fruit and veg? I did not know that. We always just gave them grain and biscuit-type leftovers. And all the bugs they could catch of course. Huh. I bet you get healthier eggs that way too. . .
Whenever I bring in the new groceries and have to make room in the fridge. Everything gets pulled out, shelves wiped down, new stuff put away. The non-perishable pantry? :: embarrassed :: I just cleaned it out last month to find some things to donate to the food bank. I am humiliated to announce to all of you that I found food in there from 2003 – when I moved into the house. I tossed it or donated it (if it wasn’t expired yet) because I figured if I hadn’t eaten it by now, I’m not ever going to.
The freezer gets done about once or twice a year, especially if I buy a bunch of stuff that needs freezing and I have to make room. I don’t keep much in there (mostly booze) because I don’t eat a lot of frozen or processed foods. The fridge is the highest rotation food storage space and that gets cleaned out about once a week. Ish.
This and my BF will eat stuff long after I won’t. He seems to have a higher tolerance for “is this still good?” He also has a nasty habit of holding leftovers in the microwave. More food gets wasted this way because he forgets about it. I’ll pop the microwave open in the morning and will find his leftovers in there from the night before. It’s been sitting out all night, so I’ll pitch it. If he finds it in there… he’ll eat it. I can’t believe he hasn’t poisoned himself yet. I do not argue or complain about this because it’s entirely possible that I am far too wiggy about germs and bacteria and he has a healthier outlook on the topic.
I used to do it a lot more than I do now. I changed a few things and now I hardly ever do.
When I get home from the store I prepare all of my veggies after I’ve unpacked the groceries. I clean them all, peel the ones which need peeled and prepare them for use.
For example:
[ul]
[li]For onions I normally take about half the bag or so and dice half and slice half[/li][li]For celery I dice about half and then half I cut in two inch pieces for snacking[/li][li]Carrots get cut in quarter inch rounds[/li][li]bell peppers get cut in strips. If I want to dice them for a recipe that’s easy to do since they’ve been washed, seeded, and stripped[/li][li]I peel about half of my potatoes and they go into tupperware containers with water in them[/li][/ul]
Etc, etc.
I’ve figured out what type of storage works best for each thing by now (some items get the vacuum bag sealing and some do not due to water content. Some get green bags, some get tupperware, etc)
I’ve found that I am much more likely to cook and eat healthier if I don’t have to fuss with the food right before cooking.
How much we throw out depends largely on my husband. He likes my cooking, but he loves takeout and dinners out. So, even though I’m pretty good about planning meals for the week, if I’m having a moment of weakness, I might cave in to takeout or dinner out. Sometimes unexpected dinners out result in tossed food if I don’t remember to put it in the freezer soon enough. I don’t buy a whole lot of bottled/canned/boxed food - mostly salsa (which we use within about a week of purchase) or pasta - so that generally isn’t an issue. It’s the fresh stuff that gets tossed most frequently, much to my dismay.
I had to throw away half a roasted parsnip last night. I don’t know how old it was but when I bit into it - let’s just say I spat it out. Prior to that… I don’t know. I try really hard not to throw away food, and most of the time I manage to eat, cook or freeze it in time. I’m not fussy about dates, either. If it still looks and smells good, I’ll eat it. Dried/canned goods get a really long pass in this house.
Yechh. My boyfriend eats iffy food too, including meat that smells off. “I cooked it, so that killed anything in it, right?” Yeah, probably, but the germs aren’t the only problem, it’s the byproducts they produce, which aren’t always broken down by heat. More than once I’ve had to say “I’m not eating that. Give yourself food poisoning if you insist, but count me out.” He hasn’t gotten sick. I say he’s lucky.
This is a guy who makes sure to eat lots of vitamins and antioxidant foods and is more concerned than I care to entertain about “toxins,” and then he’ll go off and eat something clearly contaminated with bacteria or mold, which is somewhat likely to contain actual toxic stuff. I have pointed out the inconsistency, which he just shrugged off. Drives me up a wall.
