New year res: more whole food / less waste help pls!

[Anonymous]

Theoretically my New Year’s resolution is eat more whole foods & have less food waste but basically that means changing who I am as a person! I read and liked atomic habits. I don’t know what the smallest steps are to making this happen!

Picture the scene - 2 working parents, 3 kids ages 15, 13, and 10. Always flying by the seat of our pants! Thank you for any super easy suggestions!

[Anonymous]

This may not fit with your concept of “whole food”, but I lean heavily on frozen vegetables. They’re washed and prepped, frozen at their nutritional peak and I don’t have to worry about using them up before they spoil.

Also, while it would mean extra effort and time at first, your kids are old enough to start doing some cooking themselves. The 15 year old is probably old enough to be able to cook a dinner by themselves after some coaching, and they’re all certainly old enough to help prep.

[Anonymous]

The 15 year old can do sheet pan meals. Super easy to throw some chicken or seafood and veggies onto a pan with some seasonings and into the oven.

We pick 3 meals we want to make for the week and then figure out the rest around the ingredients we are buying for those 3 meals. For instance, this week we are making a meal that wont use up all the cabbage and scallions we will buy for it. So will plan another meal to use up those ingredients. Not only has this cut down on waste a ton, but it's decreased our grocery bill.

We also do frozen veggies a couple times a week when we are doing quick meals.

[Anonymous]

Sheet pan meals can be hard for 5 people unless you have pans that optimise your oven space. I would lean into soups and stews.

[Anonymous]

With a new focus on protein and wanting to cut sugar I have started prepping my own yogurt parfaits. I have little ramekins that I make them in, but anything small, like little jars, will work or you could just make a big batch of this in a bowl.

I buy frozen raspberries and let them thaw a bit and mash them. (Mashing is perfect because there are always lots of little bits of raspberries included in these frozen bags of them.) I mix with plain Greek yogurt. It is so pink and pretty. If you aren't off sugar like I am you can add it -- or honey or maple syrup, and still have a lot less sugar than the store bought fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt. Then I put into ramekins in a layer, then a layer of nuts, then another layer of the yogurt.

You can do this with any fruit and nut combo, really. Once when I didn't have any frozen or fresh fruit, I found some mandarin oranges in a can in the pantry and that worked great.

When I'm particularly together I alternate smaller layers with chia pudding, which I just make with chia seeds and unsweetened vanilla almond milk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The 15 year old can do sheet pan meals. Super easy to throw some chicken or seafood and veggies onto a pan with some seasonings and into the oven.

We pick 3 meals we want to make for the week and then figure out the rest around the ingredients we are buying for those 3 meals. For instance, this week we are making a meal that wont use up all the cabbage and scallions we will buy for it. So will plan another meal to use up those ingredients. Not only has this cut down on waste a ton, but it's decreased our grocery bill.

We also do frozen veggies a couple times a week when we are doing quick meals.

Coleslaw! I love green onions in my coleslaw (got the idea from Silver Diner).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This may not fit with your concept of “whole food”, but I lean heavily on frozen vegetables. They’re washed and prepped, frozen at their nutritional peak and I don’t have to worry about using them up before they spoil.

Also, while it would mean extra effort and time at first, your kids are old enough to start doing some cooking themselves. The 15 year old is probably old enough to be able to cook a dinner by themselves after some coaching, and they’re all certainly old enough to help prep.

Same. Once I started buying big bags of frozen veggies from Costco and actually eating them, my vegetable consumption skyrocketed.

[Anonymous]

Changing to eat more whole foods requires changing you as a person? Uh, I don't think we can help you, OP.

[Anonymous]

Usually one day a week I would put out any leftover, meats, grains, and veggies with wraps and cheese. Everyone made their own thing and lots of leftovers got used up.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the ideas!

It involves changing me as a person because this is not how I was raised (cooking well etc) - it involves learning all anew.

[Anonymous]

I like meal delivery services because they send just the right amount of food. The two I use are hello fresh and vegetable & butcher but there are others

[Anonymous]

Same boat out kids are much younger. Am thinking of getting the ninja combo to do meat/veggie + side simultaneously and with less clean up. Our go to is salmon or steak with rice and veggies currently which seems like it would be faster in the combi. If we were wealthier I would consider the suvvie especially with teens.

[Anonymous]

I have subscribed to a grocery delivery pass subscription (not in the DC metro area, so you won’t have the same grocery store there, but hopefully some retailers offer similar) for the last three months, and I’ve seen a pretty big change in my fridge and how we’re eating. When I’m not trying to plan meals for an entire week in one visit to the grocery store,
I have so much less waste. I’m not buying big quantities, and then not cooking half of it because unexpected out of house events came up. I’m also cooking more at home as opposed to getting takeout or relying on convenience items precisely because it isn’t difficult or time-consuming to get ingredients. We don’t have to meal plan (and fail at it) for a week at a time. If we see a recipe that looks good, we can order the ingredients and make it 2 days later, before the appeal has worn off. And then, a few days later, we order ingredients for a few more days of meals that appeal in the moment.

If we’re talking about sustainability, I know that multiple grocery delivery trips to my house have carbon emissions. We can do what we can do and this is one way I have found that is effective at reducing food waste.

[Anonymous]

Can you get an example of how you currently cook?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the ideas!

It involves changing me as a person because this is not how I was raised (cooking well etc) - it involves learning all anew.

You seem like a very pleasant person who is rising above the few baiting comments from a-holes that make me want to help you even more.

Consider getting a Subscription, or following a meal plan from a publication like the New York Times or one of the restaurant bloggers. If you truly plan out your whole week of meals in advance (knowing what nights you will be out and reducing meals accordingly), even if one night gets thrown off, you’ll still have cooked most of the time, and not have much waste.