Consider cooking it, then you have something to eat.
I love cooking, just can’t ever get motivated to do it
If your problem is you buy ingredients but can’t be arsed to turn them into food? Resist those beautiful fresh veggies and go get the frozen bag of the same thing. Not only will it keep until you really want to cook, it’s already washed and cut, and it has all the same vitamins. Since you’re already saving money, splurge on the better brand.
Also, go ahead and get some prepared food for no-cook days that are still cheaper than delivery. If you’re inspired to cook that very day by a particular ingredient, make it a simple way, because shopping and stowing is also a whole chore.
Have you considered cooking simpler dishes that require far less work?
Here’s a simple one:
- Brown one 1lbs of ground beef (takes about 10 minutes) in a skillet
- pour off the excess liquid fat (not down the drain of your sink. Put it in a container and throw it in the trash if you don’t plan to use it for another recipe_
- Add 3/4 cup of water to the meat in the skillet
- one pouch of this:
Stir the contents of the pan on and off for about 2 minutes.
You now have a 1lbs of taco meat.
Empty a bag of lettuce into a bowl. Scoop out the taco meat and put it on the lettuce.
Sprinkle cheddar cheese on top of it.
You’ve got taco salad and it took you a bit less than 15 minutes.
I only buy fresh stuff if I’m going to cook it that day, otherwise frozen or canned. Then I also always buy food that takes little to no preparation and/or make a lot of anything I’m making when I have motivation and freeze that for the days (which are most days for me) when I’m stuck with no motivation. So I always have some food that’s easy to make or just heat up that won’t go bad (at least within a few days). I can’t say how it is where you live, but here in Sweden there’s been a great increase in the variety of frozen veggies etc. Stuff I’ve never seen before like many kinds of beans, mushrooms, avocado, some salad types etc. which is awesome since they keep for much longer.
Then stop buying it.
But then they have nothing to eat.
They’re not eating it either way.
But they have it
We cook and eat the food.
Go away, you tankies with your common sense
I cook the food
Then eat the food
Then poop the shit
Then recycle the… Wait… I think we better stop at that.
don’t mind if i do!
Be organized, have a weekly menu. I’m sorry this is the solution. My bad.
“the only solution is being responsible” well fuck guess I’m SOL
I feel exactly the same way, man. I fucking hate this shit.
This isn’t “THE” solution though. Plenty of other options. My favourite is meal prepping - spend three hours cooking for the entire week, put it in the fridge. Instead of an hour / hour and a half each day. You only have to clean up after yourself once too.
Issues are you need to prepare things that reheat well, or that you can quickly “cook up” each day without it taking too long. I.e. “just add the sauce to the salad” type of deal.
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.
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.
Sure, but I just wanted to point out that some of us do not have freezers that can store a lot of food. Whenever I see people being like “just freeze the leftovers” I look at my freezer like “how?”. If I put a bag of beans, a bag of ice and some springrolls in there, it is filled to the brim.
People shouldn’t assume that everybody have tons of space to store perishable foods. That’s all.
In my household we usually go for small packs of food when we shop groceries. Meats and vegetables etc. We go for small sizes because we don’t want to end up throwing out food. It’s not cheaper, but it is less wasteful in the long run.
I have a reasonable sized freezer, not a huge one, but I feel like if I put a bag of ice in it I’d have very little space. Ice cube trays will leave you with more room.
Very true! It does feel like playing tetris with that little box sometimes, haha.
This is valid and identifiable!
I gave multiple ways to reduce food waste. You only responded about the freezer and clung to it, you’re still talking about it. If you have your own method to not waste food then this post and my comment aren’t about you, stop playing the victim.
I’m not playing victim. I’m just pointing out that some people have tiny freezers.
Then use any other of the methods suggested, stop going on about freezers!
You really do not have to be this aggressive, my dude. I don’t have meal planning issues, I just wanted to bring up one aspect of meal planning that doesn’t always work for everybody.
People work with what they have, I just wanted to mention the thing about freezers because people tend to always assume that everybody has a lot of freezer space, which isn’t the case. That is all. No need to get all bent out of shape over it.
A freezer and a pantry full of canned and dried foods.
Only buy fresh meats and veggies when you are actually gonna cook.
Freeze leftovers in single portion sizes.
Eventually you’ll have a bunch of homemade frozen dinners to choose from.
I got a chest freezer for $200. I freeze everything before or on its expiration date.
Sometimes if its mushy veggies I make a stock and freeze it for the next meal. If its too far gone i have a compost jar in the kitchen and a bin outside.
I started a garden and an edible native hedge this year. I have tea herbs and squash for free now and working on a seed propagation.
I started a coop mushroom grow with my neighbors since he felled some hardwood and I had the plan. The leftover mushrooms we dont eat will be either sold at market or made into liquid cultures.
Were talking about going in on a local half cow or pig. He says if my garden keeps growing we can buy the plot behind us together and start a farm. Would cut grocery costs a lot.
My wife and I have pantry weeks where we dont go grocery shopping, we eat whats in reserve, soak dry beans, thaw last weeks on sale chicken breast and pressure Cook em, make a flatbread and have some curry.
Instant pot helps too. Thinking about getting coturnix quail to feed good scraps to and get eggs out of. I can plant cover crops for em on the last strip of lawn I have.
It doesn’t have to be wasteful forever.
It’s not for everyone, or even most people probably, but I deal with it by buying virtually the same thing every week, once a week. No impulse buying. So, I eat everything I buy, every week, because I know exactly how much I eat for each meal, each week. I waste nothing. I don’t need a list, I know the path through the store I will take, and I’m in and out in about 20 minutes, including checkout.
I decided to stop thinking about food as entertainment or reward, and now think of food as only nutrition (as much as I can, it’s not easy, but that’s the idea.)
I sought an ADHD diagnosis.
instructions unclear, my prescription erased my appetite and now all my food goes bad
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.
I do this sort of thing with pets from the animal shelter
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Consider therapy or medication.
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Buy nonperishables in a higher ratio, such as canned, pickled, or dry goods.
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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.
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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.
- Food prep. It maybe cuts down on variety but you only have to cook once. The rest of the time you’re just warming something up.
I second food prepping. If you want more variety, separate some of the prepped foods from each other so that you can mix and match.
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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.
That! And then forget you have them for three years because ADHD.
You now have gout from eating too many preservatives.
That’s … not what causes gout.
High sodium intake from too many processed foods can absolutely cause gout.
Utter nonsense.
If you say so, I’ll just keep taking my allopurinol so my foot doesn’t swell up again.
Yes, and what does sodium intake have to do with anything?
You would need to eat an exceptional amount of canned food to get gout - and rice and beans doesn’t have artificial preservatives.
Solution: freezer. I basically never have food go off because basically all of it is either frozen or non perishable.
I have a bad habit where I stop feeling bad about not eating the food once it’s in the freezer, and then it doesn’t come out until I’m cleaning months later. And then all of my Tupperware is in the freezer.
But once you’re out of Tupperware you start thawing and eating right? That’s been our system for years and it works pretty well.
