Fiscal fitness -- a detour through your stomach

I want to call attention to an exchange in the comments related to the "My cashless society" entry. Rebecca wrote:

If I hadn't looked around at what I had, I would have forgotten about the bun and it would have gone stale and then I would have eventually thrown it out. And because it's a small can of milk, I'm using less of it in my coffee (and generally drinking less coffee in order to conserve it).

and Molly replied:

I think too often many people are not aware of the amount of food that gets wasted. I didn't participate in the week without spending because we buy our food daily. While this isn't always a great idea for some, we live in walking distance to the supermarkets. It has greatly reduced the amount of food that we waste, which saves us money in the long run.

I don't know about y'all, but I was raised by two parents who regarded wasting food as a tremendous sin, and the value judgment stuck. It's also bad financial management.

One of the ways we reduce any potential waste is by planning a week's worth of meals at a time and buying our perishables based on that menu. Our menu-planning process is not terribly formal -- it's a discussion we have while walking to the farmer's market -- but it does help us stick to a strict shopping list. Another way we cut down on waste? We are big doggie-bag people at restaurants. Hey, we paid for that food -- we might as well eat it sometime.

How do you handle food waste? Are you a planner? Do you still hear your mom pointing out that starving children in [insert country here] would be grateful for that food?

ETA: Immediately after posting this, I found not one but two articles that talk about the relationship between pocketbook and menu, although not in a wasting-food capacity. Still, read Salon's Apr 18, 08, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Recession" for one writer's retreat into bargain food shopping, then read Slate's Apr 16, 08,  "Why the Food Press Rarely Talks about Dollars and Cents," which dances around the question "Can you eat well on cheap ingredients?"

Comments

[Stephanie]

I'm a planner, which is not to say that I never throw out food that has gone bad, but it is rare. (Although last week? With the spotty electricity? I lost quite a bit from the fridge.) One thing I really, really wish I could do is compost my food waste. But I rent and what counts as my "yard" is paved over.

As soon as I finish a meal I put the leftovers into meal-sized portions. Anything that can be frozen goes straight to the freezer because there have been too many times that I put something in the refrigerator thinking "I can eat this tomorrow or the day after" and then a week later I'm all "huh, forgot about that."

[Rebecca]

My husband and I have gotten pretty good at this -- lately we've been not just re-eating leftovers, but incorporating them into new meals. Like taking leftover roasted chicken and making fajitas. Tonight we're using left over steak to make a stir-fry. Should be super tasty!

[Lisa S.]

Rebecca, you're my kind of kitchen people. This is why I love a good roast chicken: if you're good, you can get four meals out of it -- the roast chicken, chicken soup, chicken barbecue pizza and chicken quesadillas. At least, that's how we roll with things like that.

[Becky]

Oh, I hate wasting food. The big planning thing for us has been identifying what things come in specific quantities, and making sure we plan to use all of it. So if we buy a quart of buttermilk, we make sure that pancakes and cornbread are both on the menu that week. If we need celery for a mire poix, we also make celery risotto that week, since we can only get celery by the bunch.

Also, I eat leftovers for lunch nearly every day, since I'm cheap and I hate sandwiches (and cold lunches in general). Usually it's just reheating what we had, but I've gotten better at re-purposing leftovers. Leftover roasted chicken is great for quesadillas, etc., and we also use the carcass to make lots of broth.

[Jecca]

Becky, I thought I was the only one who hates sandwiches/cold lunches! I get weird looks at work whenever I mention it, but I found that unless I bring leftovers or some other kind of hot meal, I'll end up just going out. The sandwich or other cold lunch will end up getting thrown out after several days of not appealing to me.

We are getting much better about not wasting food, and yes, v. specific menu planning, including side dishes, is a big key.