30% to 40% of all the food produced in the US goes to waste. Of this waste, 43% happens in households. Household food waste is primarily produce, milk, and leftover components of meals.
As a basically frugal person, I have avoided wasting food for almost my entire life. And still, I find myself with food waste from time to time.
And then I made one change in how I grocery shop, and I found our household wasting minimal food.
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| our fridge on Day 4 after grocery shopping at WinCo It's easy to see how foods could get lost in here, isn't it? |
I changed my grocery shopping from once per week to a big shopping trip every other week (choosing WinCo over any of our other grocery stores). In the off weeks, I sometimes go to the Walmart right around the corner, picking up only a couple of items that I prefer from Walmart.
When it dawned on me that I wasn't throwing very much away these past few months, I asked myself how this was happening.
What were the foods most likely to be wasted in my household?
- leftovers from meals
- fresh produce
- fresh and processed meats
- milk and cream cheese
- opened tubs of tofu
- opened cans or jars of foods, like partial cans of fruits or vegetables
- small amounts of fruit juice and lemonade
Here's how our reduced food waste played out. Shopping once every two weeks, I spend the last 4 to 5 days before shopping again scouring the fridge for foods to use up. We run out of our favored supplies and are forced to consume the less favored. As the fridge becomes more and more empty, it's easier to spot those foods that may have been pushed to the back. I may not have all of the "right" ingredients for cooking meals by day 10, so I make do with what I have on hand.
How I'm wasting less fresh produce
I've learned to push the more perishable produce first, by using these foods in my cooking for the family and making suggestions to family members as they assemble their own breakfasts and lunches. Then days 10 through 14 we use the less perishable foods. Leafy greens, tomatoes, and bananas are used first and cabbage, celery, and apples are used later in the period. Some produce items have surprised me how long they keep, watermelon being one of them. We were finishing off our last watermelon about 3 1/2 weeks after we bought it. We kept it uncut in the fridge for a week and a half before cutting into it. And then it just kept for a long, long time.
Buying milk just twice a month
When we first open a gallon of milk I pour off about half of it into small freezer containers. A week after the milk is first opened, I'm thawing a container of the frozen milk to fulfill my family's needs. If we happen to go through all of the milk before my next WinCo run, I have a little bit of powdered milk that I mix up to tide us over.
Hopes for not needing powdered milk
My plan on this next WinCo trip (in about 10 days) is to buy 2 gallons of milk and freeze 1 1/2 gallons, instead of just a half-gallon, in quart containers. This would provide back-up milk at a reduced cost of the powdered milk. Powdered milk is expensive compared to liquid milk. I wouldn't need all of that frozen milk in a two week period, but would have a little stash of milk for future weeks.
The other happy side effect is my fridge becomes reasonably empty by day 12 or 13 and I can do a thorough cleaning of the shelves. This was rarely possible when I did sizable shopping every week.
Anyway, I'm saving money, saving gas, and saving food by shopping less often.
It sounds like you have figured out a good system for reducing your food waste. We do pretty well here avoiding it. Our fridge is usually not as crowded as yours since there are only two of us and we don't cook as often as you do which means, leftovers don't stay very long in there. Sometimes, we'll do extra cooking for other meals but those go into the freezer. Produce is the hardest. Sometimes, it just gets away from us.
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