Don't Waste Food?

glassyo wrote: »

I leave things out for the homeless on a bus stop bench or two near my apt and it doesn't even matter if the package is open or closed. I don't like wasting money and they need the calories more than I do and *I* know it's safe for them to eat at least. That food has yet to stay in one place more than 20 mins after leaving it out.

Thank you for reminding me of this. I do this sometimes when I'm at an event that has way too much extra food. I'd rather someone who needs it get the food that just have it thrown away.

Well...i have three huge dogs and when i shop for groceries, i usually only shop for dog friendly foods. Since i largely live alone, when i cook, its always too much. So i cook for my dogs as well. We don't waste anything. Again, only dog friendly foods in my kitchen.

Rice has been the best way for me to use leftover food, I've noticed. It's just really versatile.

The vast majority of leftovers I have, I can literally mix with rice, and maybe something else, and make a dish out of them the next day.

Pizza rolls? Cut those up into pieces, then cook with some rice and maybe a little extra tomato sauce and/or meat - pizaa rice.

Veggies - puree these with some onions and water, maybe some herbs, and cook for a few minutes before adding cooked rice and it's a quick soup, or if you like thicker, can make a kind of faux risotto.

Eggs - make fried rice with veg and eggs

Meat - add to the rice with some veg.

Beans - add to rice and roll up for a burrito.

Fruit - look of middle eastern rice dishes that use dried fruit, cinnamon, etc... Or make it sweet - tomatoes, hot peppers, and pineapple, along with beef and rice, is actually pretty awesome, IMO.

I was brainwashed with the same mentality. "Eat everything on your plate. Wasting food is a grievous, horrendous sin!" (As if gluttony isn't.) I had to learn in therapy that eating more than our bodies need is also wasting food.

Good ideas for saving leftovers in this thread. By the way, where do you get those mesh, reusable produce bags?

If I throw it away, I waste it.

If I eat it when I don't want it or enjoy it, I waste it and get fat into the bargain.

I try very hard to tell myself this...

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.