Food Food Waste

John Oliver had a great overview of this issue on Last Week Tonight recently.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8xwLWb0lLY


It's true: the United States wastes billions of dollars a year in food.

Some cold, hard food waste facts:
Food Waste: The Facts - World Food Day

And yes, YOU, the consumer, are part of the problem:

How the U.S. manages to waste $165 billion in food each year - The Washington Post

If I told you that you could save around $1,500 a year, you'd be all over that, right?
Well, there are some strategies I use at home to minimize food waste.

1) Meal planning. I don't actually plan using recipes. Rather, I have a good idea in my head of the things I am likely to cook over the next two weeks. Inevitably, there will be fajitas, curry, stir-fry, and variations thereof. These things all use similar ingredients (onions, red pepper, mushroom, zucchini) as their base.

2) Not buying too much. I don't buy things outside of what I usually buy in terms of perishables because I know that if I don't use it, I lose it. Thus, I buy the same things that can be used in multiple meals (see above).
3) Using the freezer. Food that is near its time gets cooked and stowed away, or if it can just be frozen, it gets frozen.
4) Reference StillTasty: Your Ultimate Shelf Life Guide - Save Money, Eat Better, Help The Environment and know what actual spoiled food looks like. Some of what we think is spoilage is actually oxidation--aka rust. Know what you can cut the bad parts off of before you throw away the whole thing.
5) Know what's in your fridge. Label and date leftovers. Be aware of what you've purchased and when it needs to be used by; some best-by dates are better than others (my tofu, for example, is always spot-on date-wise; yogurt, though, is rarely right). Clean your fridge BEFORE you go grocery shopping.
6) Don't be overambitious. If you're not going to cook, don't buy food. In summer, my buying habits change considerably because we eat out more due to the heat and traveling. In winter, I do a lot more meal planning and cook on Sunday afternoons for the week ahead. I also make special shopping trips for "project" cooking; there's no reason to keep something unique on hand if I'm only going to use it once in a blue moon.

Now, I'm not perfect, but we're pretty good at not throwing out food.

Take this morning: I took thirty minutes to cook four meals worth of food, because I know that the weather is going to be hot the rest of the week, and I have a pound's worth of mushrooms about to turn, along with some zucchini that will not be good in a day or two. I cooked up a mixture of onion, red pepper, zucchini, and mushroom that can be used in those aforementioned dishes--right now, they're only seasoned with salt and pepper. I'm going to stick them in the fridge, and I'll use them in a meal later in the week. I cooked some other things, too, mostly to get ahead of the weather. If I didn't cook now, there are at least three hot days where I wouldn't cook, and my food would just sit in my fridge, slowly going bad.

If we throw things away, it's generally leftovers we didn't get to eating. If I had a larger freezer, this wouldn't be a problem, as I would just portion things into individual servings, label them, and freeze them.
What do you do to stop food waste at home?

 

I think we do pretty good about not throwing food away.

We sometimes purposefully cook ahead and use those leftovers for additional meals. Neither of us has an aversion to eating properly preserved leftovers.

We make more frequent trips to the grocery store so that the things we have are more fresh. If we have a large package of something, especially meat, we will use part and freeze part for later.

If leftovers are getting close to being too old, we sometimes use them as treats for Stanley, assuming it is something he can have.

Having plenty of fridge/freezer space helps too.

 

That what most goes to waste here. Leafy greens and things like that mostly used up container of sour cream or cottage cheese that somehow ends up in the back of the fridge.

I got a good tip for using meat that is a little overaged from a food scientist. Pathogens on meat need moisture and oxygen to reproduce. That is why steaks can be "dry aged" without spoiling, but your fridge won't work for dry aging, so don't try it.
I was told that the slightly over-aged roast can just be given a good washing with hot water to remove the cruddies and then cooked as usual. The outside is where the air is and where spoilage occurs.
You can't do this with ground meat like hamburger or breakfast sausage because the grinding process exponentially increases the surface area exposed to air, so they spoil more quickly and thoroughly.

I only tried it once (with a pork roast) but I lived to be here telling' y'all about it.

 

I sometimes buy cream by the half-gallon at Costco. Why, you might ask? Well, because it's $8 for a half-gallon of cream, duh, and in summer, whipped cream is a feature of 50% of desserts. Plus, it's UHT, so it usually stays good for 2 months. It's usually not hard for me to go through a half-gallon before the expiration date.

Well, because I was sick for two weeks, and not really cooking during my recovery, I certainly wasn't making any strawberry shortcake or pavlova or the like, so the expiration date loomed near.

The answer? Pour it into half-pint jars and freeze. It won't be as good for whipping, but it'll work for other things just fine.

Though I wish I'd seen this beforehand: Did You Know You Can Freeze Leftover Whipped Cream? — Tips from The Kitchn | The Kitchn

 

I hate wasting food.

But I've had to train myself how to not eat everything.
And more...

Maybe it comes from the days I had nothing.

 

Pro tips for saving greens:

1) Romaine hearts last longer than cut lettuce. It takes 30 seconds to cut a head of romaine and put it in a salad spinner. We buy Costco-size packs of the stuff most months, and it's not unusual for the heads to last 2-3 weeks in the fridge without trouble.
2) If losing greens is a regular problem, consider buying baby kale, baby power greens (essentially, baby kale, chard, spinach, and other heartier greens), or spinach. All of these can be cooked and frozen if they're on the verge. So can spring mix, for that matter. Additionally, any of these more bitter greens can be used in a pistou , and frozen in ice cube trays for later use.
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I think this is really where the freezer comes into play. One of the best tactics I have been taught by a coworker (and use when I have more freezer space) is to portion out dinner immediately: basically, pack up the leftovers before even serving the main serving you're going to eat, and stick it in the freezer ASAP. That way, there is always lunch!

 

Yes, but I think I'm a bit bigger than you...a Cadillac body needs lots of gas...
and what have left of a meal, won't feed me for the next. (there are advantages & disadvantages to everything...)

I mean, if I have enough for two meals or a decent chunk of meat, sure.
But just to finish off something, just to clean my plate...or if I'm full...I don't do that anymore.

These days, with being active, I'm eating 4 or 5 meals a day...I don't even need to freeze it. I'll just chomp it down a couple of hours later.
But at a restaurant...it's sometimes not worth a doggie bag...or I'm downtown, to inconvenient to transport.

I've just learned to eat my fill...and no more. (hell, the portions Americans eat are larger than many nations...that's half our problem)

 

I've seen pizzas that were larger than Liechtenstein, meatloaf the size of Monaco...

 

And y'know, that Texans eat steaks bigger than Texas...

 

A few things that have diminished our food waste to almost nothing:

1) I plan all of our dinners in advance.
2) I cook most of them on Sunday afternoon. It takes about 2 hours.
3) I try to plan meals that have ingredients in common to limit our shopping and limit waste.
4) I stick to the plan.
5) I don't buy greens unless I need them.
6) I freeze any leftovers.