Grocery shop fail

Actually, this happens to me with a lot of things unfortunately. It's mostly because I live alone. There are weeks when I can get through all the fresh stuff I've purchased, no problem. But then there are weeks where I for some reason had no desire to eat any of it it, so it inevitably goes bad & I have to throw it all out. It's the worst.

I would say my two 'most thrown out' are milk & bread. Which is kind of crazy since those are such staple foods. But I only drink milk with cereal, & I only eat bread if I make tuna salad or eat toast for breakfast. I'm someone who gets hooked on foods & eats them for weeks on end. I used to eat cereal every single day for breakfast & could easily get through a half-gallon of milk before it went bad, but then I switched to a banana & PB2 & it took me weeks to realize I kept buying milk that I no longer needed because I was no longer using it in my cereal, & that's why I kept having to throw it away! Ugh!


EDIT to say: WINE. It makes me so sad because I lovelovelove wine, but I only have like one glass of wine every few days at most. Wine goes bad pretty quickly, & since I live alone there's no one around to drink it up when I don't! :[ I've finally found a wine I love that comes in the baby bottles, so that's what I think I'll have to start doing from now on.

Milk in paper cartons will last longer than milk in plastic cartons - it can also be frozen, when it thaws it will tend to separate but a good shake will fix that...and bread can be frozen, just stick part of the loaf in a gallon ziploc, squeeze out the air, and then thaw a few pieces at a time by leaving at room temperature for about 4 hours.

I'm thankful to have my garbage disposal (aka boyfriend) to eat all the food that is going bad. Yesterday he scrapped mold off cheese then ate it.


If it were me alone, cucumbers! I LOVE THEM but they go bad so fast!! (like less than a week)

courgettes cos some days i'll really be craving courgette noodles and some days i won't go near them.
also soy milk as i normally use 1/4 of the pack before it goes off

I am bumping for the great ideas of what to do with the same stuff I usually buy and usually throw away! Thanks!!!

Try grocery shopping every couple days and only get what you need at that time instead of buying everything all at once,. Fruits and veggies don't last that long

Celery if I don't juice it up. however, now that I've invented my "Veggie Smoothie of Epic Proportions" using my Oster blender I rarely ‘juice’ anymore so I don't buy celery anymore. I throw a bunch of veggies of all kinds (kale, broccoli, garlic and other superfood veggies for sure), sharp cheddar, balsamic vinegar and a hand full of almonds into the blender, put in my ear plugs and throw it onto 'ludicrous speed' for about a minute and it’s just as smooth as butter (without all that dairy fat). It’s super healthy and tastes like the best salad you’ve ever had. I throw different things in it too depending on my whim de jur.

Oranges... I always throw the entire bag away so I stopped buying them.

Celery if I don't juice it up. however, now that I've invented my "Veggie Smoothie of Epic Proportions" using my Oster blender I rarely ‘juice’ anymore so I don't buy celery anymore. I throw a bunch of veggies of all kinds (kale, broccoli, garlic and other superfood veggies for sure), sharp cheddar, balsamic vinegar and a hand full of almonds into the blender, put in my ear plugs and throw it onto 'ludicrous speed' for about a minute and it’s just as smooth as butter (without all that dairy fat). It’s super healthy and tastes like the best salad you’ve ever had. I throw different things in it too depending on my whim de jur.

This is the weirdest smoothie recipe I have ever come across.. I'm not sure how I feel about this. LOL..

I do love the name of it though. :drinker:

Try kale with some navy beans and diced tomatoes. Season and let it simmer and work the flavors it. Also add some onions and garlic and you are in business!

Celery if I don't juice it up. however, now that I've invented my "Veggie Smoothie of Epic Proportions" using my Oster blender I rarely ‘juice’ anymore so I don't buy celery anymore. I throw a bunch of veggies of all kinds (kale, broccoli, garlic and other superfood veggies for sure), sharp cheddar, balsamic vinegar and a hand full of almonds into the blender, put in my ear plugs and throw it onto 'ludicrous speed' for about a minute and it’s just as smooth as butter (without all that dairy fat). It’s super healthy and tastes like the best salad you’ve ever had. I throw different things in it too depending on my whim de jur.

This is the weirdest smoothie recipe I have ever come across.. I'm not sure how I feel about this. LOL..

I do love the name of it though. :drinker:

ditto. I don't think I could drink a salad.

Ugh to the cucumbers. I love them! I was eating them every day but then even by the end of the week it seemed like one or two would be bad already. I have given my husband strict instructions on what to look for when purchasing these bad boys or I have him skip it and make a separate produce shopping trip.

I'm lucky to have a husband who does the shopping for us

I was buying a mixture of fruits and veggies every week. however, my husband doesn't eat many fruits and veggies and my daughter is picky about the ones she eats. So now instead of buying brocolli and carrots and cucumbers for the week I buy a lot of one and we eat that.

I'm still mad about cucumbers going bad so quick. Dumb things. Can't wait for summer to grow my own again

Actually, this happens to me with a lot of things unfortunately. It's mostly because I live alone. There are weeks when I can get through all the fresh stuff I've purchased, no problem. But then there are weeks where I for some reason had no desire to eat any of it it, so it inevitably goes bad & I have to throw it all out. It's the worst.

I would say my two 'most thrown out' are milk & bread. Which is kind of crazy since those are such staple foods. But I only drink milk with cereal, & I only eat bread if I make tuna salad or eat toast for breakfast. I'm someone who gets hooked on foods & eats them for weeks on end. I used to eat cereal every single day for breakfast & could easily get through a half-gallon of milk before it went bad, but then I switched to a banana & PB2 & it took me weeks to realize I kept buying milk that I no longer needed because I was no longer using it in my cereal, & that's why I kept having to throw it away! Ugh!


EDIT to say: WINE. It makes me so sad because I lovelovelove wine, but I only have like one glass of wine every few days at most. Wine goes bad pretty quickly, & since I live alone there's no one around to drink it up when I don't! :[ I've finally found a wine I love that comes in the baby bottles, so that's what I think I'll have to start doing from now on.

I'm not sure if I'm jealous that you have self control to not just finish the bottle off during the course of the week or I'm sad that you are wasting the wine.

I have started strategically considering when to open wine - like I won't open a bottle on Tuesday night because I won't finish it until the weekend, etc but before I started avoiding drinking my calories for the day I was totally drinking it multiple nights in a row because I "had" to finish the bottle.

I threw wine out once and it still hurts me now I am actually going to get those smaller containers of wine - I hear black box is pretty good - so I can enjoy just a glass or a glass and a half and not worry about it!

Cut it up and mix it through spagetti noodles with garlic and olive oil

Why didn't I think of that!?!

I buy Kale and use it in a meal (usually a baked omelet or on pizza) and then have NO idea what to do with the rest. I like it, I am just not very creative I think haha. So, thank you for this idea so now I won't waste as much of it!

Try freezing your kale if you don't finish it. Kale here comes in a big bundle, which is always too much for me as my boyfriend doesn't use much of it, so I freeze what's still fresh of it when it starts to wilt, which works well still in smoothies and spiced broth-based soups, which is mostly all I use it for anyway. I do the same with spinach as well.

My boyfriend makes fun of me about eggplant, because I've bought it 3 times in the past and every time the whole thing goes to waste. I love eggplant, but I never seem to remember to use it! Other than that, nothing really goes bad in our house because what ever we don't freeze, my boyfriend will use if it's on the verge of going bad, usually in a big soup that he'll use chicken discards in as well (I don't like these soups much, but he'll live on it for days!) or a very vegetable dense pasta sauce.

For anyone who mentioned fruit, I freeze half of my fruit for smoothies and keep the other half fresh for snacking. Once the fresh fruits have reached their optimum ripeness and are about to start going bad (usually strawberries and bananas for me), I'll cut them up and freeze them so I always have a constant stream of fruits frozen in the fridge for smoothies.


I call this my smoothie station.

Also a tip for someone who mentioned wine: salt it (so that it lasts) and save it for cooking!

EDIT to say: WINE. It makes me so sad because I lovelovelove wine, but I only have like one glass of wine every few days at most. Wine goes bad pretty quickly, & since I live alone there's no one around to drink it up when I don't! :[ I've finally found a wine I love that comes in the baby bottles, so that's what I think I'll have to start doing from now on.

Oh the horror! Oh the humanity! Get yourself a vacuum wine saver - it takes the air out of the bottle so it doesn't oxidize. Never had a reason to buy one in our house...........:drinker: