What food items usually go to waste/go off in your house...?

[faithfulbird]

By the end of the week/bin day/before ur next shopping trip?

All bought on by some lettuce that's turned a bit pink and soggy which we bought last Thursday.

@Inextremis

Broccoli. Every week, I buy a head of it with the intention of having it with Sunday lunch (which I cook at a friend's house). Every week I forget to take it with me, and by Monday it's gone a bit yellow. Now I've thought about it, I'll add an Alexa reminder to take the bloody stuff with me!

Broccoli keeps better if you stand it up in a mug with some water in it in the fridge. Like a vase of flowers!

Celery,
Butternut squash, pumpkin, in fact any squash really
Sweet potatoes
Lettuce
Carrots

Spring onions. I’m so tired of looking at their limp, shrivelled green bits languishing on the fridge shelf. Yet I still buy them most weeks.

We waste almost nothing and a lot of things go in the freezer to be used later, eg pesto in ice cube trays, spinach to be crumbled into soups or curries, bread to be used for toast or breadcrumbs.

I struggle with carrot as I only really have a few raw ones, neither of us really like cooked carrots, but it's often hard to find them loose. If I do, I'll buy probably 4 small ones, but can't get through a bag if that's all the shop has.

But some of the things people are mentioning last ages, eg a squash usually lasts a good few weeks. Cream is fine for at least a couple of weeks after the use by date.

I finished off some cottage cheese the other day that was about 4 weeks out of date but totally fine.

Thanks for the Parmesan tip.
We grew some broccoli this year, I never knew the head was actually flower buds! If we left it on the plant too long, tiny yellow flowers appeared! So putting it in water makes sense.

It's salad leaves here, and strawberries didn't keep long this year. DS is mad for fruit but kept forgetting about them!

Bags of salad

Lettuce
Cucumber

Bananas. DD won't eat them if they're even slightly past optimal ripeness. DH doesn't like them, & I eat about 1 a month. No idea why DH buys so many.

Absolutely nothing.

H and I have just salad for lunch during the week, so get through that pretty quickly (twin pack of little gem lasts three days if I'm careful, that sort of thing).

We're creatures of habit so eat roughly the same fruit all the time.

We have a meal plan and buy what we need to fit that - and if there's anything on offer that we can't put in the freezer, we'll alter the meal plan immediately.

Bread goes in the freezer the day it's bought or the day after it's made.

Cream will be finished up in drinks or porridge if it (very occasionally) seems to be necessary.

Cabbage.
There is nearly always a cabbage in the veg box and despite my best efforts, and help from the guinea pigs, we never get through a whole one.

Hardly anything. Just the last couple of strawberries/raspberries in the punnet which go fluffy too fast. And I'm fussy about avocados so will chuck one that's gone black inside. I'm assuming darker patches in avocados are safe, just unpalatable, like old bananas - it's not that they've gone 'off' and NEED chucking?

I meal plan so we are pretty good in using everything up and anything that is left goes into a fridge frittata on a Saturday. I do often end up wasting half bags of herbs so I need to get a bit more organised with them.

Half jars of Pesto. Always. Who wants to eat Pesto more than once in a fortnight?

Nothing much else ever gets wasted in this house though

Nothing much...milk on a couple of occasions in the warmer weather when we had fewer hot drinks

Agree the jars of things, bottles of sauces etc.

End up with loads in back of fridge that then need seeing to when I eventually admit defeat and need to dispose of them.

Bags of spinach and kale. They both come in great big bags and as I’m the only one who will eat them I never get through it all before it’s slimey.

I’ve taken to adding as much as I can get away with to DPs morning smoothies without him noticing

Every week without fail my husband will buy a 3 pack of peppers in the weekly shop. He never checks the fridge first, and knows that none of us really eat them. But he has some sort of weird pepper compulsion that he clearly has no control over. I've once had 12 peppers lined up in the veg drawer.

More than I’d like! I live alone so it can be hard to buy certain things in small quantities, annoyingly especially fresh stuff! Plus I only have a small freezer.

I try to do all I can to minimise waste and a few threads that were running on here at start of lockdown (“frugal foodies” if anyone is interested) really helped and reminded me of some things I used to do and had slipped my mind.

Mainly

Bananas - don’t like them underripe but similar to pears upthread they seem to only be at the status I like them for a very short period! And even making banana loaf isn’t always something I fancy plus a whole loaf is hard for me to get through alone

Bread - even though I’ve now happened upon 400g loaves which is slightly better (but more expensive as can only get in branded ranges) I still struggle to get through a full loaf myself, not a huge bread person but occasionally like some. Have a half loaf in the freezer which I only like to use frozen bread for toast.

Eggs - I seem to go through phases of loving and then not fancying!

Bagged salad - try to make sure I use ASAP as goes off very quick but if I’ve ordered/bought then we get an unexpected cold snap I really don’t fancy it and then I end up pretty much forcing myself to eat it

Cucumber - used to be a problem, this summer I discovered if once opened you wrap the end NOT in plastic, in fact keep any plastic as far from the end as poss - but foil lasts much longer - hope that tip helps someone

Natural Yoghurt/sour cream - again, especially at the moment the difficulty is not being able to buy small packs. Retailers/manufacturers with all the lockdown/panic buying seem to have decided larger packs of everything is better! I’m having the same prob with milk I usually buy in 1 pint containers so it lasts me longer but haven’t been able to for months! Natural yoghurt thanks to the threads I mentioned earlier I have learned to use to make flatbreads very quickly and easily! But I don’t always want flatbreads of course. I generally use these items for stroganoff, chilli etc but again...don’t always fancy those. I do now have a new blender so should be able to use in smoothies etc any tips I’d be very appreciative of

@mistymonday - squash and potatoes should last well how are you storing? Are they already peeled/cut?

I agree this years strawberries were bad for this - anyone know why this happens? That some years/harvests fruit and veg goes off quicker?

Half jars of Pesto. Always. Who wants to eat Pesto more than once in a fortnight?. 2-3 times a week here happily, but not always on pasta, loads of other uses for it

@Seainasive
Pesto freezes, do it in an ice cube tray

According to my mum, if you wrap cucumber in tin foil it stops it going manky. If this tip doesnt work...blame her!

Bags of salad and cucumber tend to be the main things I chuck out.

With
spring onions
Ordinary onions
Broccoli
Cabbage
Cauliflower and
whole lettuce ( rather than bags ) if they will fit put them in a glass/ cup with just enough water to touch the bottom / roots
With things that won't fit ( cabbage etc ) dampen a piece of kitchen towel and sit the veg on it .
Top up, moisten as and when it's needed, they will all last longer
spring / onions will grow much more like this so you can snip the green shoots off and use them in sandwiches etc

Yoghurts. In theory I love yoghurt. I fancy some, I buy some, I leave it in the fridge and then when I remember it, it's two weeks out of date grrr

Onions - I just use frozen diced much easier

Hummus.