Strategies to lessen food waste

[Anonymous]

DH tosses leftovers into an instant noodle. The man is a garbage disposal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t mind leftovers but DH doesn’t care for them. I try to “repurpose” when possible, like making sandwiches out of last nights pork roast.

I will freezer certain leftovers after a day or two if they lend well to freezing.

My somewhat guilty pleasure is putting leftover veg and protein in a bowl of instant ramen along with sriracha or gochujang and any other Asian condiments I have in the fridge.

Let me guess. Your husband also "doesn't care" to cook. It's always the person who isn't responsible for cooking who demands a fresh, hot meal daily. If he were responsible for the cooking, bet he'd change his tune right quick.

Nah. I’m the cook and I absolutely despise leftovers. Always have, even as a child. Being the cook hasn’t changed this for me.

OP - what are you throwing away? Uncooked veggies? Leftovers? Old fruit?

I agree with the person who said make more trips. I lived across from a Wegmans for almost 4 years. I went almost daily because it added little time. I was able to buy what tickled my fancy that day. Doing a once weekly trip resulted in wasted food, because it was hard to pivot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are some tips that people have to lessen the amount of food you throw out? I recent article in the NYT pointed out that household food waste is a huge contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. I really didn't know that.

So I'd like to do better with this and I'm looking for ways to start.

Start where the waste is the most: not in households, but in public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We eat a lot of leftovers. I truly don’t understand people who don’t keep leftovers. It’s often lunch the next day, or we’ll do a couple days worth of different leftovers for a dinner one night. Not much gets thrown out. Also, be careful about buying more produce than you can reasonably eat before it rots.

+1

Same here.

Or I freeze it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looking at what you are wasting might help, just to figure out where you should focus your efforts.

I tend to go through the fridge 2 times a week and look at what may need cooked/frozen/eaten asap. You might see what is consistently leftover or unused.

Having a few recipes on hand that can be improvised with assorted leftovers. Sometimes it's an omelet or stir fry.

My grocery list is built around having 2-3 kinds of fruit, 4-6 kind of veg, 2-3 meat/fish and so much of our staples (rice, pasta, etc). We don't keep more than a handful of cereals on hand, so something must be eaten before a new cereal is bought. (We have a tiny kitchen.)

Freeze extra veg/meat for stock.

+1
Buy what you and your family eat, and if you’re trying to switch to a healthier, more vegetable-rich diet, do it slowly. Experimenting, unless you’re the kind of people who can eat foods you don’t like or recipes that weren’t successful, ends up being insanely wasteful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are some tips that people have to lessen the amount of food you throw out? I recent article in the NYT pointed out that household food waste is a huge contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. I really didn't know that.

So I'd like to do better with this and I'm looking for ways to start.

Start where the waste is the most: not in households, but in public schools.

Just what the schools need: more nosy parkers telling them how they’re doing it all wrong.

[Anonymous]

OP here:

Most of our food waste is stuff you'd keep in the fridge that doesn't get used. So, produce, like a whole pack of celery for a recipe that only needs two stalks, carrots for same reason, herbs that come in a bunch, limes or lemons that get forgotten (this is easy - only buy when needed instead of stocking), deli meat where we make one sandwich and don't use the rest, hummus containers half used, shredded cheese that we only use some of, cream cheese that doesn't get used up.

From the pantry sometimes cereal or bread that gets forgotten and stale or moldy.

Dinners are always cooked at home and we do really well eating up or freezing all the leftovers. I do need to make sure the kids only put on their plates what they will actually eat so we have fewer scrapings into the garbage.

So, looking at this, composting our leftover produce, veggies, and tea leaves/coffee grounds, would vastly reduce our food waste. But composting seems overwhelming. We live in the suburbs and have a yard, but we don't have anywhere nearby to bring compost, so we'd need to do it at our home. Is there a truly simple way to start this?

[Anonymous]

My big food waste problems are:

-I buy what I should eat and then don't eat it or don't eat all of it. While this is wasteful, I think it does lead to me eating more fruits and vegetables than I would if I only bought what I'm sure I will eat
-recipes don't always turn out, so I'll make a batch of something, we power through one meal but no one wants the leftovers
-my parents generously bring groceries when they visit, but that means I have a quart of store brand greek yogurt with the consistency of wallpaper paste that I'm slowly trying to use up a few tablespoons at the time by putting it in smoothies

I do use some of the strategies above: freezing leftovers and meal planning around what I need to use. I love having a little kitchen garden in the summer so I can just grab greens and herbs as needed.

[Anonymous]

Meal plan, ordering groceries online accordingly (we pick up) so we don’t go into the store and impulse buy. This also helps to avoid buying more of x, when you already have 5 in the pantry/freezer since you can be in your kitchen, checking on what you have while ordering, we also do composting. And yes the meal planning includes leftovers, pantry/freezer shopping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here:

Most of our food waste is stuff you'd keep in the fridge that doesn't get used. So, produce, like a whole pack of celery for a recipe that only needs two stalks, carrots for same reason, herbs that come in a bunch, limes or lemons that get forgotten (this is easy - only buy when needed instead of stocking), deli meat where we make one sandwich and don't use the rest, hummus containers half used, shredded cheese that we only use some of, cream cheese that doesn't get used up.

From the pantry sometimes cereal or bread that gets forgotten and stale or moldy.

Dinners are always cooked at home and we do really well eating up or freezing all the leftovers. I do need to make sure the kids only put on their plates what they will actually eat so we have fewer scrapings into the garbage.

So, looking at this, composting our leftover produce, veggies, and tea leaves/coffee grounds, would vastly reduce our food waste. But composting seems overwhelming. We live in the suburbs and have a yard, but we don't have anywhere nearby to bring compost, so we'd need to do it at our home. Is there a truly simple way to start this?

Where do you live? Montgomery County has a pilot composting program where you can order a bon that gets picked up with your regular trash (though we just share one with our neighbors). Otherwise, yes, look up composting bins. You just start using it and mix with leaves, grass cuttings etc from your yard. We did this successfully too.

[Anonymous]

Liberal politics

We will all starve.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you could use ideas of how to use up the food you are wasting.

Cut the celery and carrots into sticks for snacking with hummus

Rotate cheese. Shredded cheese on salads or melted on toast. If you are buying cream cheese, you can use the leftovers in a muffin.

If deli meat is used once a week, then leftover chicken would be better for sandwiches.

Etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here:

Most of our food waste is stuff you'd keep in the fridge that doesn't get used. So, produce, like a whole pack of celery for a recipe that only needs two stalks, carrots for same reason, herbs that come in a bunch, limes or lemons that get forgotten (this is easy - only buy when needed instead of stocking), deli meat where we make one sandwich and don't use the rest, hummus containers half used, shredded cheese that we only use some of, cream cheese that doesn't get used up.

From the pantry sometimes cereal or bread that gets forgotten and stale or moldy.

Dinners are always cooked at home and we do really well eating up or freezing all the leftovers. I do need to make sure the kids only put on their plates what they will actually eat so we have fewer scrapings into the garbage.

So, looking at this, composting our leftover produce, veggies, and tea leaves/coffee grounds, would vastly reduce our food waste. But composting seems overwhelming. We live in the suburbs and have a yard, but we don't have anywhere nearby to bring compost, so we'd need to do it at our home. Is there a truly simple way to start this?

You need to start planning your meals to use up these random scraps. Soup, frittatas, etc. don’t buy more deli meat than you are going to eat. Prioritize eating fridge stuff rather than pantry for lunches, etc. we don’t have all this unused produce because I make something that uses it up.

[Anonymous]

Meal planning

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Compost. Composting is annoying and time-intensive, but gives me great joy. And makes a huge difference on food waste.

it doesn't have to be. I have a a compost bucket on my counter and an Earth Machine composter in the backyard. when the bucket is full I dump it in the EM. Every so often I shovel our some finished compost from the bottom and spread it somewhere in my hard that needs it. Done. You can worry about ther perect balance of greens and browns and temperature and turning, or you can just let it rot. It all does eventually.