Don't Waste Food?

kshama2001

seltzermint555 wrote: »

echmain3 wrote: »

I know the amount of calories I want for each meal so I prepare and eat exactly that. No leftovers.

This is how we operate in my home, too. Or have planned leftovers for the next day.
We almost never throw away any food at all. It is hard for me to imagine doing that. We keep a pretty minimal stock of food, shopping for 1 week at a time and eating it all. Of course there are exceptions like bulk staples. But fresh fruit and veggies, for example...we eat those right away, plan the meals in an order that we'll use the most perishable items earlier in the week, and they're almost never wasted.

My mom does none of this and has a lot of food waste. She tries to keep a list of what she needs to buy but doesn't do a good job with this, so will often end up with multiple bags of carrots, etc. And she buys too much, doesn't rotate, and the food on the bottom slowly rots, until I get fed up and compost it.

I may buy her a whiteboard for her to keep a running list on her frig, but as she has always been like this and is 81, I'm not optimistic.

I use a whiteboard. If I come back from the supermarket and my OH freaks out b/c we are out of hot dog rolls or something he uses and I don't, I point to the whiteboard and ask why he didn't add it there when he noticed he was getting low.

When the weekly supermarket flyers come in, I scan them, decide where to shop, plan meals, and transfer my list from the whiteboard to something portable.

quarterhorseygirl

I'm definitely a big fan of meal planning in advance, I like to do it weekly myself. My problem was not really things going to waste (molding, rotting, etc.) because of not getting used in enough time...but more of the BEFORE diet changes, we were buying crap that was utterly unhealthy and not acceptable AFTER diet changes (snack cakes, pizza rolls, cookies, chips, etc.). I only say not acceptable because for a lot of them, I'm diabetic and some I shouldn't have AT ALL, others I can't just have a couple and put it away so I choose to avoid altogether (my personal choice to make it easiest). Thus far most items have either been given away or are in the freezer until we find a recipient or have a gathering that warrants making them to share with others. I'm really digging the different ideas and takes on this y'all have had!