Crushing Bad Behavior

[SimplyTsundere]

So. I waste food. A lot. I know there are starving people everywhere and while that does eat at my guilt, it also eats at my pocket. And I sure like keeping money. So, I thought about it. I think that every time I waste food, I have to contribute money to a "waste jar". That money I will then donate to a charity, maybe one towards food and hunger or one towards human trafficking. This will help me implement portion control, eat all my damn food, and hey. I'll probably still donate it. Maybe I'll even keep track here.

 

How do you/have you curbed some of your bad habits?

[JessOfAllTrades]

I love this idea.

 

I'm also a food waster. I forgot what I have/leave leftovers in the fridge. Soooo stealing this.

[SimplyTsundere]

Awesome! I might make it another journal to log here once the next challenge starts.

 

Hell, if I'm gonna waste money on food, I should at least give money to those that need it.

[Vintage]

Are you wasting leftovers you've already cooked? Produce you never get around to washing/cooking? 

 

I have a tendency to let produce/meat go bad (this is the worst!). One thing I've found helpful is to make good use of my freezer (this means that I sometimes buy frozen vegetables rather than fresh ones because they'll last longer and I tend to freeze my fruit. Grapes are my favorite frozen. I also freeze uncooked meat/chicken and leftovers that reheat well). The other big thing for me is meal planning. I plan out what I'm going to make and write it out BEFORE I do the shopping and then I stick to it. If I modify the schedule mid-week, I change it in writing. 

 

My old roommate kept a list of what's in the fridge that needs to be eaten (leftovers and fresh produce). That way when she went in to find something to eat, the first thing she'd see was a list of the things that needed to be eaten up.

[SimplyTsundere]

Sadly, it feels like I waste everything. Cooked and uncooked. Produce and everything else in between.

[Vintage]

I'd focus on planning out your meals before you shop then. If you're wasting everything, there's a good chance you're just buying too much food. This happens to me when I go into the store without a plan, shop more often than I planned to, or go out to eat more often than I planned to. And all that comes down to planning for me.

 

Unless the issue is that you're under eating for your caloric goals overall (but buying/making enough for them). I can't help you with that... not my problem area

[I-Jo]

buy less- nothing pisses me off more than making more than one trip to the store.

 

But I also equally HATE wasting food- I had to throw an ENTIRE Pack of chicken breasts out- I didn't get to it fast enough- they were going bad by the time I tried to cook them. 

 

So I mostly have it down to a working science- I know how much produce I need to keep me good for a week- tried shopping every 2 weeks- but I can't- no space and produce doesn't last- so I'm resigned to the fact that I need to go once a week. And I buy the same exact stuff everywhere- so no surprises and very little wasted food.

[Krisis]

I just threw away $8 worth of chicken yesterday.  I would totally join a challenge thread.  I suck at food wasting.  

[NiklzNDimz]

I'm a frugal bastage sooo I write down the meals we're having for the week and shop for that.  When it comes to meats, I tend to pop them directly into the freezer until the day before I'm going to use, just in case something comes up because something always comes up.

 

Are you in a place where you could set up a compost for your discarded veggies or donate them to a friend who does compost?  It's not the ideal scenario but at least it goes to some good use.

[Sambalina]

I use my freezer a lot - like NiklzDimz, I keep the main stuff (meat) frozen until the night before I need it. Also, I often separate bigger portions of meat into one meal baggies so I don't have to defrost an entire pack of meat and then use it before it goes bad.

 

My worst thing is fruit. It's fine one day, rotten the next. Luckily, here in South Korea, there is a special trash collection just for food waste and they use it as animal feed.

[Krisis]

I do the plan a meal, buy ingredients, store thing.  I am usually pretty good about cooking my meat on time (I store it in the freezer till the day before.  This week I pulled out chicken and kept forgetting to cook it or having something come up where I just didn't want to cook it.  Sometimes meat squicks me out.)  I waste more fruits and veggies.  It's gotten better with veggies though because i've started buying mostly frozen.  I don't care if it's more expensive or not as good for me - at least I'm not wasting as much! 

 

I have a weird thing with fruit where if my husband buys it, I won't eat it.  I'm also really allergic to most fruit, so I'm very picky about what I buy.  He bought me red grapes the other week and I ended up giving most of them to my son because they weren't picked by me so they weren't ... safe?  I'm weird  

 

Anyway.  Frozen veggies.  Highly recommend.