How to waste less food
Posted by foofie81 on Mar 01, 2008 · Member since Jul 2007 · 577 posts
It's almost time to go grocery shopping again. To your dismay you open the refridgerator and find several fruits and veggies leftover from your last trip to the grocery store. The food is just sitting there slowly reaching a point where it can be considered inedible. What are some general things you do to cook these foods so they do not go to waste?
Get something like the Evert-Fresh Green Bags. They really work to keep your veggies good for a week or two longer.
I always keep a list of what's in my refrigerator on the outside. Then food almost always gets used before it spoils AND I open the fridge less often because I already know what's in it. It may be easier, if you're less than super-organized, to just keep your grocery receipt on the outside of the fridge instead of making a separate list.
Dude! This is my thread. I hate wasting food and water and I have been known to eat things that are probably questionable. But! In general, I think I'm pretty good at using up fruits and veggies and making them not taste half bad.
I think a little planning goes a long way. I usually go to the store once a week and before I do, I look through my fridge and cabinets to see if there is anything I need to use up. If so, and if it looks less than optimum, I look for recipes that use those things.
Then when I get home, I prepare things with the most perishable ingredients first (like delicate vegetables and lettuces). I almost always buy peppers and carrots, so I cut those up to use in salads and for raw eating earlier in the week. I think it's much easier to eat stuff up if it is already prepared and you can grab it out of the fridge for lunch or dinner on days when you are super busy. Produce-wise, I try to buy things that are on special and at least more local whenever possible, so if there is really ripe fruits or vegetable, those get eaten first. I save the stuff that keeps, like apples, for later in the week.
If you have fruits like berries or grapes or bananas that are losing their raw eating appeal, you can freeze them and use them later in smoothies, sauces, or muffins. You can make frozen bananas into ice cream. Older apples are great cut up and made into applesauce. If citrus fruits go moldy, you can still usually use the rind or the juice from at least part of it.
If you have veggies with some soft spots, you can cut off the parts that are still good and throw them in a stirfry or roast them and mix with rice, beans, make burritos or something. You can make good soup with almost anything. Or you can just cut them up and throw them in a stew pot and make vegetable stock to freeze for later (or use).
I can also never go through a whole loaf of bread by myself, so when it gets stale, I just rip up the stale pieces and put them in a baking pan on my counter to dry out. Then I have bread cubes for making croutons, crumbs, or a giant pan of vegan stuffing.
Also, I have found it is helpful to be flexible with recipes and ingredients and substitute whenever you have something that needs to be used. But then, you're a vegan. You already know that! :)
I saw this book, Intuitive Cooking, at the store today. It's supposed to help you learn how to use food you already have on hand.
Do you use them? I got some last month. They do make the veggies last longer, but if there's any moisture at all things start to rot on me.
I use them. I've found the large size bag is best for whole vegetables and the medium size is best if I've chopped them. I get veggies from a co-op, so they aren't wet when I put them in the bag. I don't rinse anything until I'm ready to use it. I suppose if you get produce from the grocery store it may be a little damp because they are forever spraying water on it.
Err. I rarely waste food, because I always buy and eat the same damn thing every week. It's ok though. I'm weird like that. Anyway, I took a gamble today though. Last weekend, i bought some bulk tofu, and used half of it. I put the other half in a tupperware. So, this morning I decided to make a scramble with the remaining half. Umm, the outside was a little gooey and had a different color than it should have. So, being the non-waster that I am, I sliced off the gooey parts and scrambled away. So, as I took my first bites, I noticed a weird taste. It wasn't a particularly "bad" taste, it just wasn't "right." So what did I do....kept on eating. That's right. Anyway, I got through about half of it before I decided that I just couldn't eat anymore. Good news though! We are approaching the 12 hour mark and I haven't gotten sick! Yay for stomach of steel! :-D
For veggies, Accumulation Soup. Chop some onion (and garlic, if it moves you), and saute in olive oil in a big old soup pot. Chop your veggies and add, cover with veggie broth or water, season to taste. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Whether you add noodles, rice or potato is up to you. Cook until your toughest veggie is tender.
You can cheat and use bullion cubes or granules instead of broth, if you want. If you have a lot of different veggies you shouldn't need them.
The best way to avoid waste is to be a tiny bit more observant...how much can you actually get through between one shopping trip and the next? I know it's hard, I do it too--you go to the veg store or the area in your market and all those fresh, beautiful veggies are saying "PICK ME! PICK ME!" and you come home with half the display. But I know that a whole cabbage is going to last me for awhile unless I have a particular dish in mind.
Menu planning doesn't work for me, our markets are so seasonal I have to see what there is first, and plan after. So knowing how much is too much is a real help.
I always have this problem too when I don't make sure I have a recipe planned to use whatever veggie I buy. I bought some broccoflower (broccoli/califlower hybrid) on impluse last weekend and haven't used it yet. I just broke off a floret for a snack when I went to look at the package to double check the spelling of the name. It's pretty good.
I should make myself keep my rule that I don't buy a fresh veggie without a recipe or plan to cook it!
Not to say that bookpapa and I don't waste produce and other food from time to time, but the incidences are much fewer since I started buying groceries from a weekly menu. I create a menu of 7 main meals but don't assign them to a particular day so we have some flexibility in what we feel like eating.
If there are dishes that need to be made ahead (most casseroles, desserts, bbq sauce, anything with lots of ingredients, etc.) I do that on the weekend and store them in the fridge so they are ready to go with just a warm-up. I try to plan a mix of easy-to-make-for-immediate-consumption meals and make-ahead meals.That procedure has worked very well for us for over a year.
I like feeling like I'm "in control" and organized and doing it this way satisfies that need. It does require planning ahead, though, so if you aren't comfortable doing that, it won't work for you.
Freeze what you can. Don't throw it away. Freeze and use later.
In the past I have stored fresh berries, chopped vegetables, wheat bread slices, bagels, cookie dough and cookies. Then take them out the night before to thaw out.
I took someone else's advice here and poured the rest of my pasta sauce in a ziploc bag. Froze it. Then broke off what I needed to when I needed it for cooking.