Our freezers and store cupboards are stuffed to bursting, so this year I’ve decided to make a concerted effort and utilise what we have before buying more food. My tendency to stockpile probably started with the COVID pandemic when we avoided supermarkets like the plague and ordered all our food online. Tripling the quantities seemed like a good idea at the time, especially if the world was coming to an end. Consequently, I still have a weird selection of many tinned foods, such as black beans, butter beans, lentils and peaches, to name a few.
I also have a bad habit of freezing leftover veg, such as celery, squash and courgettes, with the intention of adding them to soups. Do I? Of course not.
I am also far from frugal when people come to stay. I usually buy enough food to feed the surrounding villages and then some. Meals are planned for every day, and then we’d eat out. For example, we couldn’t decide which turkey breast to buy for Christmas dinner, so we bought two. Just in case. AND we bought a joint of gammon to roast. Mr Piglet was hell-bent on cold meat and turkey sandwiches and worried there wouldn’t be enough. Enough? Methinks Mr P’s eyes were bigger than his belly, and half the roast cooked gammon joint ended up in the freezer, which reminds me to make a gammon and leek pie next week. (runs out to check if we have pastry in the freezer).
So this week I will be taking stock of what I’m hoarding and plan meals accordingly. AND cut down portion sizes.
How frugal are you? Do you buy food with good intentions only to see it go to waste?
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Piglet in Portugal 
Several years ago, hubs and I arrived at avoidance of food wasting. As a result, the number of days that I cook are greatly reduced, we purchase groceries as we need them, and don’t stockpile sale items. At home in Canada, this is easy, because we live a city block from the grocery store, so we can buy fresh every day if we wish to. Here in Texas, the vegetable man visits our park weekly and as far as dairy, and canned goods … we do a weekly shop, and only purchase as we use up what we have, or exact ingredients for a specific recipe. Meats, we purchase less often, so we do keep a variety in the freezer drawer of our fridge – but all of those are packaged in 2-serving sizes. We both enjoy leftovers and hubs will often make “fridge soup” from those. I can’t remember the last time we had any food waste.
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Another organised person! You guys really put me to shame 🙂
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I am extremely frugal. My parents lived through the dirty 30’s on the prairies and their stories stayed with me. I grow tons of veg and process or freeze. I meal plan a week at a time. We buy meat directly from the ranchers and nothing goes to waste, not even the soup bones. Take all those veggies you froze and make veggie stock. Use it in place of boughten chicken stock. We eat well and when serving company I highlight our garden and our region.
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Bernie, I am impressed. We should all take a leaf out of your book. While everyone doesn’t have the land to grow tons of veg we should all be planning meals in advance. I try to but then don’t stick to the plan.
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The meal planning is key. I also bake all our bread.
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This is such an important topic: here in the US, 30-40% of food goes to waste…shameful, and we are also trying to eat through our cabinets a bit…I am sharing a story ab out that next week!
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Hi John, 30-40% is a lot of waste! I have never thought about it terms of percentage but I know in the UK supermarkets throw a lot of food away because it is out of date. such a shame.
Pope back and drop in a link t your post once it’s published. I’d love to read it.
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I will do that! I plan to post Monday or Tuesday!
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I’m happy to say you aren’t the only one! I try, but always overcook for gatherings. I have made reductions in waste over the past year or two, but there is still loads of room for improvement.
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Hi Tracy, yep. Overcooking for gatherings is a hard one as not everyone eats the same quantitiy. This is why I froze the roast gammon.
Good you have already recognisedfood waste and have made some inroads.
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This made me laugh so much: “I am also far from frugal when people come to stay. I usually buy enough food to feed the surrounding villages and then some.” When it comes to food, we are definitely kindred spirits! I, too, make resolutions to avoid food waste. I am largely successful, but there are times…
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Hi Laurie and fello foodie 🙂 I think I am always worried my guests will go away hungry so I defintely overcater.
The resolutions are still work in progress. The first one is keeping the contents of the fridge to a minimum especailly fresh vegetables and keeping a close eye on the use by dates of everthing else and applying the ‘sniff’ test.
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I have a zero food wasting policy. I plan what we are eating a month at a time, and order food online once a month. I do purchase more fruit, vegetables and sometimes dairy in between, but before the next online order I make sure that we eat what we have, except those things I purposely stockpile.
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Maria, you are SO organised. I definitely think planning is the key to minimising food waste. AND, for me, avoiding supermarkets. I see something I like. Stick it in the freezer and forget about it.
Yes, Me P if you are reading this … what are we going to do with all the frozen prawns you bought?
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Very interesting post for me as I have been an ardent foodie all my life. Because of rotor cuff (arm muscles broken from their tendons) I am living in a serviced studio at the moment (boring-snoring food as you can imagine 😦 !) just making my own Scandinavian breakfasts to bring some excitement into the fare but love planning and cooking. I very much buy the best I can access and afford . . . but feel absolutely horrendous throwing out even one tablespoon of food. Remember I am old enough to have been thru’ WWII as a child . . . after eating bread made from old newspapers and living on grass and mushrooms found in the forest and occasional fruit found on someone else’s tree, one feels ungrateful and guilty throwing absolutely anything out. Since I have mostly eaten SE Asian oft stir-fry foods from all the different countries most of my life, one can use what there is in a million different combinations all the time – wondrously tasty too! Glad to see all those tins of beans on your shelves . . . wonderful for your health and so tasty in a myriad of recipes 🙂 !
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Hi EH, I remember my mum telling me diffeerent stories about food rationing during WWII. They would probably have fed a family for a week on the food we waste.
Sorry to hear you are in serviced apartments at the moment. That must be tough if you love your food.
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Ha! Never mind the rationing -that may have said you were entitled to 100gm of this or that – but the shops were 95% empty . . . living in S Germany the last year of the war, we would line up at the bakery all night in all weathers, queues 100 metres long, hoping to get some ‘bread’ mostly made of sawdust! Oh, you have forgotten my name . . . it is Eha, ‘dusk’ or ‘twilight’ in Estonian tho’ I have lived in Australia since the war.
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Hi Eha. no not forgotten your name my fingers are dyslexic.
I can’t imagine living through the horrendous conditions you describe in the last year of the war. Did you write memoirs about this period of your life?
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Yes and no! I was one of hundreds of thousands of children all over Europe in exactly the same situation – it feels like ‘showing off’ to speak up even now! BUT, an Estonian doctor friend organized for a couple of ‘memories’ books to be written by a number of us a couple of decades back and I played my part in Estonian and German. Am also quietly helping a number of Scandinavians from Sweden and Denmark and Finland do their university Masters and Doctorates in WWII history by my first-hand knowledge. Not too many with real first-hand memories left used to writing and communicating . . . and, if you only knew what the history books are already omitting and changing because of ‘political correctness’ Ha! Ha! Ha!
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