POLL: How much food do you waste?

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I find that my waste went way down when I started planning my weekly menu and shopping accordingly, instead of buying produce just because somethign looked good, and figuring that I'd come up with something to do with it. There's still some, mostly in the form of produce that doesn't get eaten quickly enough. But I will say, I'm pretty good at trimming away the nasty bits and making fruit salad or soup or stir-fry or somehting out of what's left.

Oh, lunchmeat - the sliced deli stuff. If that doesn't get eaten quickly it goes all slimey. Ewwww.

 

It's very rare anything foodwise goes in the garbage. Like Rally, we (or rather the other half) plans the weekly menu and buys accordingly. We tend to eat everything on the plate, but any scraps (except fruit & veg) go the way of the dog. Any veggie peelings get put in the compost for future use on the veggie patch. Things harvested will generally be frozen if not eaten then and there.

As we now recycle all paper, glass, cardboard and plastic bottles we're down to a single black binbag every two weeks. It'd be a lot less if we could recycle other plastics.

 

Yeah, the menu planning thing works OK, but only if you can predict what you're going to feel like eating on any particular day. If you plan to have a big hot meal but it might end up being a hot, tiring day and all you feel like is a cold salad.

 

I can oonly plan ahead for a day or two, because of the fact that it is rather difficult to do more major shopping because i go to the store on my bijke, and the catstuff takes up a lot of space already....

 

Actually, the stuff we don't get to use, between the dog and the garden, much of that is dealt with...

 

I realise that the prices vary between countries and people have different eating habits and things to eat are different etc.
But that just made me stare. $100 for three people is so little, atleast to my standards.(No, we don't eat any gourmet.)

Our, two people, food budget is about double of that, only the milk itself is hovering around €45 per month!(Yes, we like milk, now stop staring )
Our food budget all-in-all is somewere near €200.

We don't waste much, just the stuff that we forgot was even there.

 

Good point. Our 2.5 person house spends closer to NZ$800 per month or about USD600. Maybe that is because we waste so much food.......

 

Umm Harbourboy, I'm sure you didn't mean to say that your little HarbourJr is 1/2 a person...

 

Well, I was trying to get across that he would probably cost less to feed than a 6 foot teenager, but then again, given that my "grocery" bill includes things like nappies, maybe I should count him as a whole person in terms of cost................

 

I would say it's about $300 a month for two people here. And that's with no eating out at any fancy places.

Here is NY state mind you, and it's high taxes (highest of all 50 states) make the cost of living the highest in the USA.

 

We're two in our household (just myself and my grandmother) and, at most, we'll spend 300 Canadian at once, things that will last for the next 2 or three months. The only thing that's bought regularly is milk and bread. Everything else is used up as best as possible. Of course...with her actually coming from a third(ish) world country pretty much taught her, and myself now, that nothing should be taken for granted, and that wasted food is a pretty bad thing to do.

This topic really does bring up a good point though, because I've seen food go to waste not even because it's rotten. About a month ago I was invited to a friend's place for dinner, and they were served something that they disliked. What did they do? Once dinner was over, she took the plate, went to the garbage can, and quite "matter of factly" just dumped it right in. Can you believe that? One casual gesture, and food went to waste.

Quite a shame really, that anyone could do that when others cherish every little bit they could possibly get.

 

We don't waste much, some moldy bread, fruit or vegetables sometimes. It's probably because we go grocery shopping every or everyother day. I always go to the store and see what they have on sale or that's expireing (cheaper) and buy accordingly.

 

Huh? What sort of food are you eating that can last 2 - 3 months? Do you not eat fruits and vegetables? We would struggle to shop for food less than twice a week.

 

I just realized that one thing that contributes to my food-waste is "having no idea what to do with the rest" syndrome with things such as cream - I usually use half of the smallest package available if I need cream and the rtest goes sour because I have no use fot it. not always, but too often. same goes for some other things, too...

 

Oh, we have lots of those, it's just we tend to get more frozen kinds. Onions have been known to last forever in our fridge, same with broccoli, carrots, cucumbers, and lettuce. Most of those last long times in our fridge, which is why we don't go very often.

Of course, most fruits we'll get every two weeks or so. Forgot to mention that.