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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
I live walking distance from 2 small super markets, I walk to those near every day and just get a few things and I also get hello fresh and I always cook those. So generally my fridge is pretty empty but I always eat well. Just in Time Home Economics you could say.
I just hunt and eat the homeless. I work for the municipality so I just leave what I don't eat around park benches, bus stops and the front of stores to scare the rest away.
Buy stuff you don't have to cook. It's crap nutritionally, but at least it isn't wasted!
Consider therapy or medication.
Buy nonperishables in a higher ratio, such as canned, pickled, or dry goods.
If you're not concerned about your health enough to cook your own food every day, then just don't buy food that has to be cooked every day.
Remind yourself why you're doing it, set a timer, and get it done. "This is for me. I love good food, I love my body."
A thing that has helped me a lot is to go buy food when I'm not hungry. It reduces my chance of overeating and buying lots of food, also making me spend less money.
When I used to cook a lot for myself in uni it helped a lot to plan meals.
Why are you buying perishable food items in bulk? Are you an inarticulate fopdoodle?
Buy empty deli containers and food prep at least half the meals for the week.
Clean up fridge on day off, note overstock and old stock
Plan meals for the week using the over/old stock.
Use the pickup service at the market instead of shopping so you don't buy stupid things.
When you buy raw meat, cook it within two days, even if you're just going put it back into containers, it'll last far longer.
We cook and eat the food.
This happens to us - if I cook dinner for everyone, two of us eat, if I cook dinner for two of us, everyone wants to eat. If I make enough for leftovers, nobody takes them to lunch. If I don't make enough, they ask why there is not enough for lunch.
Things that help on your question though -
Canned beans, canned tomatoes, canned coconut milk, canned pumpkin, jarred spaghetti sauce, spices - a lot of our staples are not perishable.
Do you live where you can stop by the store on the way home? Then don't buy perishables for the week, buy them for the meal you are making.
Some foods and meals freeze pretty well, freeze them and keep a list of what's in the freezer so you remember to eat it.
I hate meal planning but it helps a lot. I sometimes put a note on the fridge "we have food for dal with spinach, chicken & cabbage, sheet pan gnocchi with sausage and broccoli, eggs and potatoes" or whatever we have the food to make, and cross them off as they are made.
Some foods make other foods. So if I make a hunk of pork, it's pork, rice and beans then enchiladas then burritos, and so on.
Perishables take more planning. Get just enough and have a plan to use it. Use canned and frozen food to account for uncertainty. Be aware of expiration dates of your food and plan accordingly.
Freeze stuff
Walk yo and from the grocery store
Buy stuff that will last a while
Grow your own produce
Freeze your fresh bread and only defrost the amount that you're going to eat.
Use a software/app to meal plane. (Mealie/Tandoor) You pick the recipes you fancy for the days/week/whatever period. It generates a grocery list containing exactly what is needed for the meals you chose, nothing else.
I haven't thrown away anything in a couple years now. Oh and freeze leftovers if needed.
Buy food that has a long shelf life - lentil, rice, beans, canned vegetables, salsa jars. As a bonus it also doesn't have to be refridgerated.
You now have gout from eating too many preservatives.
That's .... not what causes gout.
That! And then forget you have them for three years because ADHD.
It’s called a freezer and lunches for the extra. Eat chicken? Batch cook that pallet- brine in about a couple of water, a bouillon cube, garlic and a bunch of salt, parsley, oregano, rosemary (to your taste), and a couple of the cheapest white wine at the grocery store if your feeling fancy or really like gravy. After a few hours or overnight, dry and throw in your oven at 400 for twenty minutes. When its out, let the chicken cool on a cutting board, slice some up and chop up the rest. You now have a baseline chicken that tastes as good as deli-quality that works well in everything from dinners, sandwiches and salads, and if you skip the rosemary, its a good stir fry addin.
Cook in bulk for the week. Grocery shopping on Saturday, cooking on Sunday. Then all you have to do is heat things up at meal time.
*I should clarify that you only need to refrigerate, not freeze, the type of stuff I'm talking about. Works better if you're vegetarian
In my household we tend to buy just enough that we know we can eat it over the course of two to three days if it is perishable foods.
If the store sells smaller packs of meat and vegetables and other perishable foods, we buy those and use them in our cooking the next few days.
We don't have a lot of freezer space and we don't have a garden, so we try and avoid bulk buying unless we know we will be able to eat it all before it goes bad. It works pretty well.
I had this issue with produce. I stopped buying it because it would just go bad before I used it.
I found that visitng shop frequently and buying a little each time helps with this. Also, knowing what you have and planning what to cook with stock in mind. Also, one might find better to buy at small grocery stores (turkish in my area). These have ability to buy as an example 10 or less potatoes instead of fixed 2.5kg of potatoes. That way you're not bound to swiftly eat potatoes before they rot.
If you don't have a good sized freezer, buy one. There are small ones that fit in any home.
Too many veggies? Chop them up and put them in quart sized containers. You can add them to any soup or stew.
I have a five quart pot; make chili/stew/soup and freeze in pint size containers.
My house has a good freezer, here's the first i searched out as an example.
Meal plan. Write what you're cooking for the week, buy only ingredients for that.
Anything uncooked goes in the freezer, you can defrost and cook/reheat a lot of food, stop throwing stuff away.
Problem is that some of us have freezers the size of matchboxes, so it is very limited what leftovers we can put in the freezer. It's something I have attempted to tell my parents who have big freezers and lots of good ideas to how you can buy this and that in bulk and just freeze it for later and save so much money!! Cool. But my freezer is still the size of a matchbox.
That doesn't stop you from Meal Planning ahead and only buying what you need for that week.
And leftovers can often make great soups, stews, and curries. They can last in the fridge for about a week.
Protip: Save up, buy a dedicated freezer. Like a "redneck hunter's garage" style one. Nothing fancy, just a white box with a dial on the front for how cold you want it. Cheaper than the fancy flashy fridge freezer combos, and much more usable space (although you have to stack stuff inside). A lot cheaper than you'd expect. They also come in a variety of sizes, from small to "I need space for three bodies".
I buy stuff that lasts. For bread, I find that rye takes weeks longer than white or wheat to start going bad, and bagels last ages too. I make smoothies with mostly frozen fruit. For dinner stuff, if I'm not feeling like cooking I either buy things I'm going to eat in the next few days or I get these sealed precooked things from Aldi that are great and keep well. Coconut milk also tends to keep better than cow milk and lately I've realized I greatly prefer it.
About the only things that are super perishable that I keep around are bananas and avocados, and I just tend to eat these a lot. I also keep spinach or kale around for my smoothies, but I rebag them into separate smaller bags as soon as I get them. If my bananas are getting overripe, they get frozen for smoothies.
I also tend to buy canned soups, which last ages.
When I was cooking regularly I'd make a lot of chilis and pasta sauces. They're good to freeze and they keep well on their own. Chili is arguably better after freezing and having more time to develop.
You can definitely eat pretty healthy and keep plenty of food in the house without constantly chasing waste.
Meal planning is overwhelming to me, so I made a habit of rotating a selection of staple meals with fewer, more stable ingredients. PB or eggs scrambled with cheese on toast for a breakfast. A salad of chickpeas, carrot, broccoli and avocado with a whole-wheat roll, or a lentil/rice bowl, for lunch. Precook larger batches of freezer-friendly staples like chickpeas, lentils, rice, turkey burgers, meatloaf, tomato gravy - reserve 2-3 days' supply and freeze portioned batches of the rest. Allow yourself less experimental ingredient buys per grocery run - so if it turns out they don't synergize with your staples, you're not accumuating a lot of dead-end ingredients.
i dont, my family always buys too much food regardkess to how many times i tell them to not