Get the most out of your groceries: How to prevent food waste

Determine what ends up in your trash every month. Is it the unopened bags of wilted spring mix or quarter of a pack of cheese? This is a basic first step to stopping food waste in your home: Know what you’re not using so you know know what to stop buying — but it’s easier said than done.

Also: How to create a grocery budget

We generally start planning our groceries by thinking of what we’re going to cook and eat for the coming week. This process ideally happens at home, but it also happens when we’re already at the store. Maybe you’re walking around the produce aisle and decide to be extra-healthy this next week and buy several bags of salad mix, only to have life happen in the following days and then you find yourself throwing away the untouched food when it’s gone bad. 

And it doesn’t only happen with produce; 30% of the total food loss in 2010 consisted of meat, poultry, and fish. These items notoriously make up the most expensive food group in the American diet. So food waste isn’t just an environmental problem; it’s a financial one as well, one that affects us all personally.

Quick tips:

• Buy frozen: Did you know some frozen produce can contain more nutrients, like more vitamin C, than the ones in the produce aisle? Produce is picked at the peak of ripeness and frozen before it starts to decompose; plus, frozen produce lasts longer before going bad.
• Toss it into the freezer: Instead of the trash, your bag of spinach can find a new home in your freezer to be used for smoothies or recipes calling for frozen spinach. This is the case for most fruits and a lot of vegetables as well.
• Don’t buy it: If you’re consistently tossing the same items untouched, give yourself permission to not buy them or buy smaller packages. Save that money for something you’ll actually consume or enjoy.

Different shopping habits may mean grocery shopping with convenience in mind, but you can do this without sacrificing health.

Like many other parents in the US, we don’t have the village it takes to raise kids, so it’s all on my husband and me. Food goes bad in the fridge because we forgot about it or we were too busy and didn’t have time to cook it before the kids’ bath and bedtime. So the convenience of ordering something often wins. 

Meal planning doesn’t really solve all these issues. While I’ve always loved cooking and still do, I’ve come to realize that making full meals from scratch multiple times a day every day of the week isn’t something I can manage without failing to do something else for my kids. As a result, I’ve changed my shopping habits to include more convenient options that better fit my busy life.

Quick tips:

• Shop for convenience: Instead of choosing the fresh salad mix, I’ll buy other vegetables that don’t go bad as quickly, like tomatoes, avocados, and broccoli, or frozen vegetables. 
• Plan what you can: Instead of meal planning and cooking on the weekend for the entire week ahead, I lean on leftovers when making my shopping list. So maybe I’ll cook a larger package of ground beef for spaghetti but leave half for tacos the next night, making the next meal easier and quicker. 
• Buy what you love: Preventing food waste doesn’t mean you have to skip buying all the things you like; just buy less. If you like apples but end up throwing away half the bag when it goes uneaten, try buying two or three apples instead of a whole bag. 

This all seems easy enough, but  it makes a real difference to my bottom line, my mental health, and the amount of food that goes to waste.

This is where a freezer would be a lifesaver to prevent food waste, but you can’t just freeze everything and continue buying the things you won’t eat. 

The foods that go bad the most often in my home are vegetables and chicken. Things like zucchini, carrots, peppers, and onions are quick to make a break for the trash can, only to be replaced the next week by the same items. With time, I’ve learned to not buy them unless I have a clear plan for a recipe that calls for them and the ones I do buy I gather and blend into sauce or soups when I see they’re going unused. 

Quick tips:

• Set reminders: Check expiration dates and set reminders on your phone for the things you really want to use before they go bad.
• What to do with meat that is going to go bad: I started to double up while cooking. I’ve found I’m less likely to throw away meats if they’re cooked because by then it’s easier to add them to a meal. If some chicken is about to go bad in the fridge but I’m cooking burgers that night, I’ll make the burgers and have the chicken cooking in a separate pan at the same time. Then just put the cooked chicken in the freezer to add to salads or other meals and I won’t have to buy new chicken the next week.
• What to do with those extra uneaten veggies: All it takes is to cut them up and roast them in the oven for a little bit with some seasoning, then blend them all together. This makes for a tasty sauce and soup thickener, but also a way to sneak in extra veggies into pasta sauce for kids. Plus, you can freeze this mixture.
• Get creative: If something’s about to go bad in your fridge or pantry, look up a recipe that includes it. Maybe you can put that ingredient in a casserole, or make your own trail mix with it.

If the mention of meal kits makes your wallet wince, don’t fret. There are affordable meal kits out there that can actually help you save money and reduce food waste.

I really love cooking and feeding my family whole foods but needed something convenient, and making boxed mac and cheese every night wasn’t going to cut it. This is why I started using EveryPlate. It’s an affordable, family-friendly meal delivery service that sends us enough ingredients for five recipes a week, each one for four people. Since me and my partner have three kids under six, it works out, sometimes leaving us with enough leftovers for a lunch for two. 

Also: Meal delivery services that start at $5 per serving

Having a meal kit service takes the guesswork out of what to make for dinner, and leaves me only worrying about groceries for breakfast, lunch, and snacks, but it also opens us up to new recipes and less food waste. Since we get exactly what we need for each recipe, we rarely throw any of the meal kit food away. If a recipe calls for a side of veggies that my kids won’t eat, I know I can simply blend those and add them to a sauce or soup. 

Meal kits often come with their own environmental concerns with increased plastic packaging, but recent studies show that meal kits actually leave a smaller carbon footprint than grocery meals.

Quick tips:

• Shop around: Look for the best meal kit service for your budget. For our EveryPlate subscription, the cost for the five meals at four servings each is about $112 a week, which is a lot less than eating out. This is one way we’ve effectively reduced both our grocery costs and our food waste.

• Take advantage of coupons and new customer offers: Our first box cost less than $50 and the next few boxes were 20% off. Most others also offer deals for joining their service.