How much food do you waste?
 

There was a story in my newspaper today about food waste. They claim the average family wastes $1,500 of food annually.

I’m sure we don’t come close to that. I’m the king of leftovers. If there’s enough, I can make another meal out of them or re-serve what’s left over. Smaller amounts become my lunch or breakfast. Meat, poultry and seafood never go in the garbage. Beverages; the same except drink mixes that become a one-off. There’s a bottle of Collins mix that’s been sitting there since last year with 2” in the bottom.

My freezer is too small for things to get lost. Nothing stays there more than a month or two.

Bread - I might toss a heel every month or two. Bagels, rolls, biscuits, waffles are all consumed 100%.

Unscientifically, I would estimate that we waste maybe $200.

So, what is it?

I buy almost exclusively fresh produce. Berries are the most susceptible. I feel like the mold starts to grow on them while I’m driving home from the grocery store. Lettuce: I like packaged salads and sometimes a head of lettuce sits in the drawer for a month or more. I use half a cucumber at a time. Three days later, the second half has turned to green goo. I eat the wrinkly grape tomatoes from the bottom of the package. I trim the turned part of broccoli or celery or zucchini and cook/eat the rest. Fresh herbs never get finished. I’m learning to find them in jars. Since I started buying jars of minced garlic, I haven’t tossed a single clove.

Condiments and ingredients. Sometimes that jar of pesto or jerk sits in the fridge door for a year. I just never got excited about using it again. I tossed 1/3 of a jar of Polish mustard last month. It was too spicy to serve with anything but smoked sausage and I was the only one using it. We do suffer somewhat due to being a 2 person household. I imagine it’s worse for singles.

Restaurant leftovers: not me. I finish almost every meal I order in a restaurant. But Mrs BV needs to be reminded that the box in the back of the middle shelf came home with her. If I don’t remind her, it gets binned when she turns her nose up the following week.

What about the rest of you?

We truly do have very similar eating habits. It’s pretty rare for anything to sit in my fridge over 24 hours. As my Mom used to say, “waste not, want not”.

Not sure an exact amount, but I plan and cook my meals so nothing goes to waste. I grew up eating leftovers, so I have no issues eating the same meal for dinner two or three nights in a row. I like grabbing the buckets of salad from Sprouts and mixing it in with dinner.

I’ve definitely got some sauces for several months and haven’t noticed anything adverse about them.

We are about the same as you. The main waste are things like lemons/limes/cilantro/celery/etc that we always want on hand in case. Occasional stray hot dog bun or 1/4 loaf of bread. Maybe a few potatoes out of a 5lb bag. Very little really. We both do bring restaurant leftovers home regularly, and those usually end up being used in a breakfast burrito or some such. Larger things like lasagna/enchiladas/casseroles get frozen after 2 or 3 meals and eaten later when we're in a hurry. I love leftover cold steak or chicken sliced for a snack. Friends like to give us all kinds of bottled hot sauce as gifts:rolleyes:, and unfortunately, most of those go in the bin after tasting. I would be surprised if we wasted $200/yr.

We have bins outside where we put leftovers, then the municipality comes and empty the bin once a week and use it to make bio gas and bio fertilizer (we even get paid a little for it). So we see quite well how much we throw away, and it not even near $1500. Maybe $200 as you.

What country was this story from?

I read it in a Florida newspaper. While I don’t recall that it specifically mentioned the US, I don’t recall any detail that made me think otherwise.

I hate wasting food too. I am happy to eat leftovers or pop something in the freezer for later. I freeze half a can of chicken stock or milk or buttermilk in zip freezer bags if I only needed to use a little for a recipe. I have a small freezer but bags lie flat and don't take much room. I always have frozen dill that I can snip off a little into a sauce, frozen almost brown bananas or other leftover fruit (not great for just eating but good in a smoothie or more likely a margarita). My local Mexican place always gives tons of homemade tortilla chips with any order. I will freeze those in small bags and use them to make chiliquilles or add to soups.....good portion control for me too. Leftover bread always goes in the freezer even if it is just a couple slices...I can use that to make croutons. I make a big batch of rice in the rice cooker and freeze in smaller portions. Some refrigerated things go bad such as a jar of roasted red peppers growing fuzz after opening. I live near the water so things in my pantry do tend to get stale fast even when I seal them in zip bags...crackers, pretzels, nuts (which I also freeze) etc.

Probably me. My spouse asks me to get stuff and then nobody eats it. I recently composted mozzarella that had a 4/21 date. Ugh. What bothers me is when my spouse whines about my bakery purchases for baguettes etc while ignoring the many fancy cheeses that are bought and then left to sit in the fridge.

I did overbuy ice cream in 2020/2021 and am just slowly tossing it.

I would say 95% of my wasted food is scallions, cilantro, and limes. I get the first two for a recipe where I don't need much, save the rest thinking I'll use it, and then they're green mush in a matter of days. I buy enough limes for multiple drinks if we're having friends over, but it seems like we always only use one or two.

I get that. Cilantro and parsley are sold in bunches far larger than I need and I don’t usually have another way to use the surplus before it goes bad. I’ve learned to slice larger lemon wedges so half a lemon won’t be tossed. I suppose it’s a subtler form of waste.

I guess I should know that dill freezes. But your post is the first I’ve read that. I have a half package at home that could be frozen. But it’s at home and I’m not. Next time ……

A big part of the challenge with cilantro is how wet it is when you first purchase it. Many supermarkets just keep misting the bunches so that they're bright and green but waterlogged when selected.

If you can open up the bunch once home and let them dry out a bit in a colander, the bunch will keep much longer. Also, avoid storing in the fridge back in the bag used from the store given how much water was in there in the first place.

David

We like to wrap the cilantro loosely in a towel and then into a bag. Seems to keep for quite a while.

The dill is wilted when frozen but that doesn't ever matter for what I use it for. I never refrigerate cilantro...wash & dry and put the stems in a glass of water like it is in a vase and keep it on the counter. I have (when feeling energetic) also chopped it in the food processor with a little garlic and oil and put that in the freezer & I can just break off a bit but again...not the same as sprinkling fresh cilantro on something. You can freeze whole lemons...they can't be zested because the skin is mushy when thawed but they are super juicy because freezing breaks the cell walls. Maybe ok for a wedge in a drink or if you just want some juice but too mushy for a nice lemon slice. I always freeze ginger or just use pickled sushi ginger in a jar that keeps years it seems. I haven't found a work around for the scallions yet either and I have thrown those away.

Fulsome
 

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...cc73229267.jpg
I was in Riyadh for work, and my hosts were worryingly generous.

The photo was 75% of everything that they wanted me to try for dinner. I kept trying to remind them that I was but one person, but no success.

Truthfully, I ate a lot of it (especially the baklava, and liquorice juice). But what I couldn't eat, I gave to some workers while out on my constitutional.

I try to waste as little as possible. Occasionally there are a few things that go bad but that's rare in my case. In the last few years, I've been trying to grow a little bit to suppliment what I buy as not everything was available. Still do these days for a different reason (office work is now cloud-based so a lot fewer trips and need something calming after dealing with developers who don't understand if they have a security breach, they're screwed).

But that said, there are only a few things I toss.... mainly meat or dairy products gone bad (not counting egg shells). I keep a few holes (not big ones, maybe the width of those industrial sized ketchup cans) in the garden that I toss raw veggie ends into (think carrot tops, outer layers of red onions, the butts of romaine, etc.). As the holes level a bit, I'll layer them with a bit of cardboard and dirt (part of the "hot compost" methodology) and after it's nearly full, I'll top it off with dirt. Give it a few months and you can see that area of the garden has sunk a bit and that spot is effectively ready to be used to grow something.

As for the fridge door, I only keep sauces and drinks I plan on chilling. I try not to buy really exotic sauces, however I try to finish them even if I don't like them. It might just take time.

We have a green bin program here where we can toss organics. They collect once a week and the contents get composted or biogased as you guys do. It's a handy program, but for the size of our bin, to keep it full, you'd have to be burning more than $1500 a year in groceries.

I would avoid composting cheeses. That attracts pests and often starts to smell when decaying. Considering the expiry date (assuming you mean 2023), that cheese should still be good. I would have made a few grilled cheese sandwiches or maybe mix it into a mac and cheese dish myself. About the only time I wouldn't would be if it's one of the smellier cheese (eg, blue).

As for the ice cream, unless it thawed and refroze, I would still consume it. Never waste ice cream.

Scallions freeze well. I will usually buy one or two bunches (a bunch has 5 stalks here). chop them up until the white part, regrow them (stick'em into a jar with some water and ANY light source) two or three generations and toss them into a ziplock bag. Do that a few times and you fill the bag. I find if you just use water as the growing medium, after two or three generations, the whites become mush. If you want to extend the number of times you can regrow them, use dirty and a sunny location.

As for what you can do with them, ramen dishes, fried rice, if you make asian pancakes from scratch, scallions are a very common ingredient.

Any leftover lemons (or any citrus really) I get, I just dry on a paper towel (might chop them up if the pieces are big). The peels and whatever you call the guts of a lemon (I know there's a technical term, I just can't remember it) make great amendments for soil. I just mix the bits into the dirt before planting and then mulch new stuff as I get them. Does wonders for any tomato plants I grow. Raspberry plants love it too.