The Fridge (and Pantry) Pact
by meg
Hey guys! Again with the truancy. I know, I know. My excuses? Fireworks! Ice cream cones! Lazy bike rides by the beach! When I am on vacation, I really do unplug.
Also, some pretty exciting news. I am finishing up work at my current job (and have thus been kept rather busy lately: yep, more excuses) and starting a new one in a week and a half. I couldn’t be more excited to tackle new challenges and hone my skills in a fun, fast-paced environment. I am not sure exactly what effects my new schedule/job will have on my posting around here, but I suspect I won’t be quite as prolific as I have been in the past. I will continue to post anything I’m doing or thinking about that’s relevant to ZW as well as anything exciting I come across elsewhere, in terms of news, ideas, stories, tips, etc. about Zero Waste.
Now. To the topic at hand.
We have been out of town for the last two weekends, and so grocery shopping has not occurred with regular frequency. We also haven’t been eating up leftovers as well as we normally do, and to be honest, even in a normal month I throw away more spoiled food than I would like to admit.
In fact, I’m beginning to suspect that this is the single largest area of “waste” in my home right now. Obviously time to tackle that.
Yesterday I cleaned out the fridge completely, tossing anything no longer edible and reorganizing so nothing can hide from me (muahaha.)
Now my goal for the rest of this month: no wasting food. Which means: not making more than we can eat, not forgetting about things until they go bad, and not buying things that we can’t finish in a reasonable time frame. Also: finding new uses for things that would otherwise spoil.
Easier said than done, I can tell you now. But I’m gonna try my dangdest! (And let you know how it goes.)
Here are some great posts/sites re: avoiding food waste if you’re interested:
Iron Chef Your Leftovers (via Lifehacker)
Love Food, Hate Waste
How to Avoid Throwing Away Food (from Make Wealth History)
My favorite quick tip from the above? Buy produce at staggered levels of ripeness: a few ready to go, a few that need a couple days. That way by the time you eat the ripe ones, the unripe ones are ripe. I did this yesterday with avocados!
Other important tricks include: learning “kitchen sink” recipes, finding uses for stale food and freezing or canning abundant produce.
How about you? Do you find yourself throwing away more food than you care to admit? Do you have strategies for remembering to use up what you have? Let’s hear ‘em!
Man this is one of the problems I have not been able to figure out. I wish fresh healthy food would last as long as the stuff packed with preservatives! Especially in my house with 4 busy roommates who often buy multiples of the same thing and then are too busy to use it, and I watch it rot.
One thing I’ve started doing is buying frozen veggies to toss in stirfries and pastas and such. I don’t like it as much as fresh veggies, but at least they sit there and wait patiently until I finally get around to all the grand culinary plans I had when I was in the grocery store.
Smoothies are also my fav for fruit that is on the verge of spoiling.
Oh also – I try to cut up veggies as soon as I buy them, for easier snacking and prep. One thing that has drastically extended their shelf life is putting a paper towel in with them in the tupperware container.
Banana bread. At one point this year I had a few too stinky bananas in the apartment. I came home one afternoon and my roommate had given one of them paper wings and eyes, thus creating “the banana fairy” who had conveniently left me a note instructing me how to make banana bread. The fairy had even left out the ingredients needed.
Perhaps better advice on how to get your roommates to make sure they take care of fruit before it spoils!