I read the other day that in America the average household throws away about 1/3 of the groceries it brings home! And that in 2024 a family of 4 is spending between $1000-$1500 a month on groceries, it’s like throwing away about $300-$500 a month! It’s also been found that larger households and lower income households tend to waste much less than a third of their food and being a going-on-mother-of-9 (did you guys know that yet???) I might have a few tips on how to cut this amount of waste down. And just think what you could do with all those savings, like sign up for a subscription box of the best meat IN THE WORLD!

Tip #1: Keep your meat frozen

Freezers are great for extending the time you have to use your food. Getting your meat in vacuum sealed packages mean you can leave them until you’re ready to use them and even quickly defrost them last minute in some water.

Tip #2: Utilize Frozen Fruits and Vegetables More Often

Consider more frozen fruits and vegetables for the same reason. Fresh produce is highly perishable and one of the most commonly thrown away items. Frozen veggies are less expensive than fresh too! We recently used our vacuum sealer machine to seal up several big bags of trimmed green beans for the freezer for wintertime. But using freezer bags will get the job done fine with perhaps less time before they start getting freezer burned. If you find you aren’t using some fresh produce like you intended, quickly eat it or get it into the freezer and save it for later.

Tip #3: Smart storage for fresh produce

That being said, there’s nothing like a fresh peach in August or strawberries in June or a cold, crunchy salad in the summer. Keep buying or growing fresh produce but be extremely realistic and conservative about how much you will use and if you will eat it before it spoils. Keeping produce like berries in mason jars in the fridge after rinsing with vinegar keeps them fresh much longer. You can even put whole peaches in half gallon mason jars! Root veggies like potatoes, onions and garlic like to be kept in a cool, dark, dry place like far away from your stove.

Tip #4: creatively using leftovers

Along with fresh produce, leftovers are one of the top thrown away items. Either right after the meal or after a week or two languishing in the fridge. Our family struggles with this as there’s often random things left on plates by small children that are sometimes in a questionable state. Or we cooked 2 too many fried eggs for breakfast. Or we didn’t use the too small for the whole family amount of mashed potatoes in the fridge and it got pushed to the back and forgotten. We take heart that we have chickens and pigs who enjoy these but it is STILL wasting money. I use up meat and veggies in scrambles in the morning and use up potatoes in various ways for breakfast too. The only veggie I get push back about being in eggs is brussel sprouts but if I slice them small they don’t mind. I make soup often and it is very forgiving of having random things added. Spaghetti meat sauce in a broth-y, tomato-y soup, mashed potatoes really just disappear, random meat can be added and of course any veggies, noodles, beans, rice or other whole grains.

tip #5: planned leftovers

My other advice in this area is to plan to make enough of foods that are easy to have as leftovers and then they are planned-overs! Soups and stews are great for this. In Italy they don’t call them leftovers, they just say they are having more of something! So even if you want new things every night, suffering through a leftovers night (or a “more” night) will save you money, be less wasteful, and is more economical than buying many different ingredients.

tip #6: Saving questionable food

My favorite example of this is from when my mom joined the Peace Corps in her early 20s and went to Senegal. The village she lived in often had a butchered animal (like a goat) hanging out in the open in the over 100 degree sun for days and clearly going bad by our standards. This did not phase them in the least, when it came time to prepare dinner they would cut pieces off the carcass and thoroughly cook it over the fire. My mom was like “SURELY I AM GOING TO DIE FROM THIS!”. But she ate it along with everyone else and although it tasted terrible, she never got sick from it because the fire killed the germs. So if we have something just for our family that we found had a spot of mold (not smelling bad) we will scoop that part off and boil it really well. And a mold spot on cheese or a little start of mold on bread can just be cut off. An apple with a soft spot can have that part cut off too.

Tip #7: I would say plan ahead but I don’t

I love going to a friend’s house and seeing that they have one of those meal chalkboards with everything written out for the week and then I pick which night we’re coming for dinner by it, haha kidding! I have never been great at planning ahead but after practicing cooking for a long time I can throw things together with whatever I have on hand at the moment. So I tend to keep a well stocked pantry and freezer that I can make some of our go-to meals with and then I look around at what I have that needs to be used and make things with that. Like at the moment I have a bunch of cucumber and zucchini and will be planning some things around those. So if you like having a meal plan for the week or month and that works for you I think that can be really helpful knowing what to buy. I think I can only get away with doing it this way because we spend a lot of time at home and cook all 3 meals from scratch. A family with a busier life than ours or less cooking experience would do well with a meal plan to reduce waste.