So, how much food do you chuck out?

[2sugars]

Have to say, if I - for examply - buy strawberries for dds one day and they don't want them, they're rank/soft the next. I could make an eton mess from them, but they'd still detect the softness. Or a smoothie. But nine times out of ten I don't.

I think - as I shop every day anyway - I've just got to get into the mindset of shopping for just that day.

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In general we throw out very little. dh needs a bit more training in this respect.
BUT. (confession time)
I am hopeless at putting too much on dds plate and often she doesn't finish it. Am loathe to put aside her leftovers for another meal. Unless dh and I have room her leftover food gets chucked.
I really must get more disciplined about what I put out for her.

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We don't freeze bread. Saying that, I do hve one loaf in the freezer, for emergencies. Generally we eat a loaf a week. Once every three weeks or so, I notice that the last 3 slices have gone mouldy and it needs to be thrown away.
For me also, tuesay being a mince day fills me with dread. Or planning for a month, good god.
Sometimes we sit there and say, with boredom, what shall we have tonight and end up having ...... pizza out of the freezer.

We do two lots of shopping. Anything I can freeze as it is getting to its chuck out date I freeze. The animals get any meat left overs.

I watched a program regarding this the other week. the man (cannot think of name atm) was eating 4 day after date chicken breasts and the like . [barf]

We throw away a lot less since I stopped out vegtable box. Each week odd veg would turn up and we never seemed to find time to be inventive with it. Now I order specific veg from ocado and although it may be a less ethically/environmentally sound source we never waste it.

My big problem is buying family size tubs of yoghurt/guacomole/hummous and we eat 3/4 of the tub and then the rest sits in the back of the fridge for a week before going in the bin. But if I get the small tubs there is never enough.

we throw away a lot less since we have been meal planning and batch cooking

we have done half hearted attempts in the past but we are really sticking to it

my friend's parents meal plan and they have eaten the SAME meal every sunday night for 30 odd years

i always freeze bread and MILK

Oh and I also give my neighbour any scraps we have leftover out of freezer when defrosting. it is most likely better than his diet atm. (Fray Bentos Pies) He eats then constantly. [grimace emoticon]

I have just had the weekly fridge clear out before going shopping and I am about to throw away...

2 small cabbages
some unopened M&S Chocolate dipping sauce (best before January 2008)
half eaten chunk of feta cheese
4 soft bendable carrots
small tub unopened sour cream (use by 4 july)
half eaten tub of couscous.

Not bad for a family of four though huh??

LOL at Artichoke.
That time old problem.
Small pot is too small. Big is too big.
One pizza is never enough. 2 is too much.

don't freeze bread, pass about 20 bakeries a day usually so pick up fresh rolls usually.

Never thought of freezing milk RubySlippers. Might try that, I'm always running out.

See based on that programme, I would still eat the chocolate dipping sauce.
Like tins don't go out of date for centuries. Do you really think that those baked beans, that have more preservatives in them than ...., are going to cause you to have food poisoning, becasue they went out of date last month ?

carrots always go off in our house and end up thrown out, ditto celery. Might need one stalk and the rest then ends up being thrown out.

We throw out far too much I think. Mostly because I'm not a good cook/meal planner

Throw out next to nothing here. It is all in the planning.

Occasionally the odd slice of ham or mouldy bit of bread (which the dog eats), or bits of lettuce (compost or wormery).

very very very little.

Only the odd manky carrot that's somehow escaped to the bottom of the veg drawer in the fridge.

I don't even look at sell by dates and would only not eat something if it actually looked or tasted off or was crawling out of the frisdge of its own accord.

Oblomov, it's the canning process that preserves the beans, not the preservatives in them. If it's a sealed can nothing is going to get into it to spoil it. Same with sealed jars.

I don't throw much food away but I shop for fresh food nearly every day.

Don't throw uncooked food away, but the DDs are so unpredictable in their appetites and fads that I throw a lot of their cooked food away unfortunately.

I remember being amazed that my French MIL went shopping twice a day for the ingredients for lunch and dinner, and that she had almost nothing in her storecupboards or freezer.

Although time consuming, her system is definitely less wasteful.

Bramshott why throw cooked food away?! Just put it in a container in the fridge and have it the next day.

I tried meal planning.

I threw out ten times as much.

Agree with Cod - suddenly I was back knowing that it was sausages on Wednesday, bloaters (euuuch) on Friday, etc etc and cast into a depression.

The relief of breaking out and going and getting a Waitrose ready meal curry box instead of trying to get excited about Cabbage Surprise on a Saturday evening.

We don't throw out much - DH does all the shopping and most of the meal-planning and he's very methodical and organised. He also goes shopping at least once a day for fresh food so we don't buy in loads and then let it go off.

However, I did throw away a decorative glass bottle of sea salt crytals interpersed with fancy coloured pepper corns yesterday as it was a rather impressive seven years past its best before date.

meal planning doesn't mean you stick to the same 7 meals week in and week out, it just means you plan in advance before going shopping. I plan about 4 days at a time and sho accordingly.