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.

Pesto if you put a thin layer of olive oil to cover and store in the fridge will last for months

Bread. DH insists on buying a massive crusty loaf every day even though I don't eat bread, DS1 rarely eats it and DS2 rarely eats it and also no longer lives at home. The birds are getting so fat they won't fly, soon.

Also lettuce.

Almost nothing I would say. It pains me if I have no other choice.

Cucumber keeps better out of the fridge due to their high water content (strange but true).
Most veggies that look a bit past their best I tend to make into a soup.
As others have said spending a bit of time stock checking and meal planning has cut down on what goes in the compost here, but bags of watercress or spinach sometimes seem to turn to mush overnight and end up in the food waste.
Also the odd avocado. Pretty sure they have something like a 1.5 second ripeness window that I often miss

Agree with spinach. I wish they would sell it in smaller bags as I always feel guilty to throw it out because my recipes only need a handful!

Most veggies that look a bit past their best I tend to make into a soup. yes that's what I do too - they also can generally be chucked in any stew/casserole/curry you're making

Pears, lettuce and avocado. Although I've got better with avocado since I gave up buying "ripen at home" as they seem to go black before they get sensibly soft. Can also make guacamole if not ripe if I use the processor rather than a fork.

Pears have about a 30 minute window between useful weapons and mush.

Lettuce and spinach just go slimy so quickly

Fresh soup. I don’t really eat soup and my husband goes through phases of eating it daily then just stops. Which means what’s in the fridge just goes off. Pisses me off.

As far as I’m concerned if you said you wanted it, just bloody eat it.

Not so bad these days now we have Guinea pigs that eat all the veg and fruit. I cut up huge block of cheese and freeze most of it so it doesn't end up going off. I buy huge tubs of plain yogurt that I never manage to finish so that is a waste.

Normally salad /veg /cold meats .DH wants salad but never eats it! Drives me mad!

I am the queen of the freezer, so everything that possibly can gets put in there.
With spinach, if I'm not going to use it in time, I wash it in a colander, pour a kettle of boiling water over it, squeeze it out then freeze it ready for curry etc.
I do keep getting caught out though by seemingly good avocados that have gone black inside with no warning.

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

Two week out of date yogurt is fine, it's unlikely to have gone off.

I'm doing quite well with avocados lately. They seem to finally ripen about 2-3 weeks after the sell by date and then last a few days in the fridge. I've got one at the moment that I suspect might have a couple of black bits, but I'm going to cut them off and make guacamole with the rest.

Half bags of salad, couple of slices of sandwich meat (because instead of eating all of one packet before opening another DH likes to alternate beef and ham 🙄)

Lettuce at ours too and the carrots that go bendy and difficult to peel and grate. Sometimes we’ll get a squishy cucumber. I try to meal prep so only buy what I need for that week.

Another one for spinach the bags are so huge. I also buy frozen spinach and forget it's in the freezer so I should just use that and stop buying fresh.
Also coriander I love it but DP doesn't like it as much doesn't put as much in the food if he's cooking. I usually bung it in the freezer if I catch it in time.
Hummus is another one for me, I'm the only one who eats it and it goes off quick.

I definitely did a left over veg soup this week including half a cabbage and other random bits.

Hardly anything here. Tend to keep an eye on dates and condition of fruit/veg and cook accordingly.

Made frozen banana 'lollies' recently dipped in melted chocolate and nuts/desiccated coconut which were fab, definitely better outcome than trying to freeze slices for smoothies!

Used to be grapes but now I’ve cottoned on to freezing them none get wasted - they’re yummy!

Fruit and veg. I don't care for it much, it's others who want it bought and then don't eat it.

The end crusts of bread, sometimes. But I don't feel bad about that.

@Killpopp

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.

I go through about twelve peppers a week, haha. Send them here.

You can freeze most of these things if you have the space. Or the veg you could use for soups or even roast them.

Cheese!

How on earth can you waste cheese ?

It lasts for months after the date on the pack or can go in the freezer and that's if you don't eat it relatively quickly.

I hope that people aren't throwing things away because 'they're out of date' because that's where madness lies.

I currently have 2 week old lettuce and carrots in my fridge in water and they are fine, crisp and fresh.

Lettuce keeps longer in water with a bag over the top. If you catch it before it goes slimy (decomposing), you can recrisp it by putting it in a bowl of ice water (or just water in the fridge). The same applies to any vegetable that is going limp - cauliflower, carrots, parsnips, spring onions, sprouts, potatoes.

Globe artichokes, broccoli and asparagus are also better kept in a glass with a few cm of water. Spring onions too but you have to change the water every day or it will go slimy and oniony. You can also stick spring onions in the garden, they will keep growing! Actually, you can regrow spring onions and lettuce in water or the ground using the leftover end pieces.

The black spots on carrots are from fungus. I wash mine (to get rid of any spores) then store them submerged in water in the fridge. They keep for up to a month that way.

Yellow broccoli is fine, it's just the flowers opening.

I have a special Sistema fruit container for berries that keeps them fresh and mould free for twice as long.

When the bananas are too soft to eat but just before they go to black mush, break them up and freeze them on a tray. You can blitz them to make soft scoop ice cream another day.

I seem to have had a running battle with milk this year: dc eat cereal every day and we run out, or they randomly stop eating it for a week and all the milk goes off. I never get it just right!

@Clutterbugsmum

Pesto if you put a thin layer of olive oil to cover and store in the fridge will last for months

That's really helpful