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This is probably intended to be tongue-in-cheek, but meal planning is the answer. Block off some time (Sunday evenings are popular), to figure out all your meals for the week, make a list of everything you need to make all the dishes on the menu, go to the store and buy all that stuff and nothing else, make ahead and freeze any meals that you can and do any prep work ahead of time that you can.
Viola: intentional eating, less waste, and always something on hand to eat.
It changed my life in a lot of positive ways.
Only buy stuff you’re excited to eat
That’s how you get diabetus
A slow cooker helps. You can use random ingredients before they go bad easily enough, and you will have left overs so cooking one time results in not having to cook for multiple meals.
This is actually a real issue for a lot of people. The solution that I found is that you should sit down and write out a meal plan for the upcoming week. Like actually sit down and plan out your every meal and include snacks as well. Then write down the things you need to buy for those meals and snacks. Make sure you only put down things that you actually like eating.
When you go shopping take that list with you, and only buy the things you wrote on there and only buy amounts for the meals you’re planning for. If by the end of the week, you bought too much, then that means there are meals in your planner that you don’t really like. From there, you can refine your list and make improvements every week.
I cook the food
Then eat the food
Then poop the shit
Then recycle the… Wait… I think we better stop at that.
don’t mind if i do!
i didn’t start cooking until I got a big enough kitchen to store plates, forks, knives, spoons, glasses, cooking pans/pots&utensils, cutting boards, leftover food storage, dish towels, and food cupboards and pantry.
rentals rarely have enough for that.
but once i got enough space to have that stuff, and then saved up to buy that stuff little at a time then cooking became a lot more sensible. (middle aged bachelor)
i have recipes that i don’t have to think about that create leftovers.
And that is the goal: LEFTOVERS
Leftovers are your bread and butter of saving money and not having to cook.
Yeah …
Strategies against this include cooking for several people (well, that ain’t happening), doing meal prep several days in advance / cooking larger portions that you can eat over a couple of days, and buying frozen ingredients (still better than buying entire frozen meals). Some non-frozen ingredients keep for a long time, too, e.g. dried rice or noodles, onions, pickled vegetables.
Something that worked for me is always shopping for a specific meal. Instead of buying ground beef because I might want burgers or tacos or chili, I instead buy everything for a chili. It’s lead to less “oh I forgot I had this beef in here” and more “I better use this nice, fresh beef to make chili because otherwise I’ll go hungry.
It’s not a perfect system, and seems really obvious in hindsight, but has been a paradigm shift for me.
This, I typically make a stir fry or something that will last a long time for me
better use this nice, fresh beef to make chili because otherwise I’ll go hungry.
My issue is that I often end up choosing the “go hungry” option over the chili option
and I love chili
I think one of the tricks is to purposefully plan time to cook that’s not right before you’re planning to eat, so it’s an activity/hobby, not a necessity. If I have to cook when I’m hungry, I’ll probably just make do instead, but if I say “ok, Saturday afternoon, I’m gonna make a pot of soup, because that’ll be delicious later,” it’s a lot less dreadful, imo.
I like making a chili and freezing the left overs in an icecube tray, then poping them out and storing the chili cubes in the freezer. Like, it will basically last forever in the freezer, and this way it’s pre portioned and I can just nuke how ever much I want at some indeterminant time in the future.
Works well with any similar kind of sauce.
Ice cubes of chili? Either I eat way to much or you are very much more behaved with portion control and eating several times a day.
I’m pro one meal, eat until full… fast till I pick a time a time to eat the next day. Then again if I made chili I’d put garlic/onions in the pot bottom first, then meats to brown, then all other ingredients. Cook it all in one pot then when done eating, put the pot in the fridge on a heat mat. Eat the same thing until it’s gone.Which would usually only take a 2-3 days.
Having someone else in the house and having to make other meals makes meals so much harder…
“We had that yesterday” - apparently what many other people say.
I do a mix of this with food prep. I’ll buy a bunch of ground beef and make a bunch of burger patties, and freeze the ones that I’m not using right away since I can pull them individually out of the freezer and throw them straight onto the grill or into a pan. Or I’ll buy the stuff for a big stir fry and then have leftovers for like 3 other meals.
100% the longterm ingredients. I have an emergency meal which is just rice, frozen peas and carrots, and crushed cashews. I probably have green onion and definitely have numerous sauces available, too.
Your emergency meal sounds healthier than most of my regular meals, lol! It’s usually just fries, zucchini and some kind of frozen meat or fish (all baked). Fresh zucchini probably doesn’t last long enough for OP’s needs, but it does last really long for fresh produce. Though part of it is that I kind of follow FODMAP so onions and legumes are out for me.
Not sure what FODMAP is. Regardless, if it works for you it’s pretty much always better to eat something than go hungry, and really if baked fries are the only “negative” there I mean how bad is it really? And it’s not like I don’t ever eat fries.
A freezer and a pantry full of canned and dried foods.
Only buy fresh meats and veggies when you are actually gonna cook.
Freeze leftovers in single portion sizes.
Eventually you’ll have a bunch of homemade frozen dinners to choose from.
I got a chest freezer for $200. I freeze everything before or on its expiration date.
Sometimes if its mushy veggies I make a stock and freeze it for the next meal. If its too far gone i have a compost jar in the kitchen and a bin outside.
I started a garden and an edible native hedge this year. I have tea herbs and squash for free now and working on a seed propagation.
I started a coop mushroom grow with my neighbors since he felled some hardwood and I had the plan. The leftover mushrooms we dont eat will be either sold at market or made into liquid cultures.
Were talking about going in on a local half cow or pig. He says if my garden keeps growing we can buy the plot behind us together and start a farm. Would cut grocery costs a lot.
My wife and I have pantry weeks where we dont go grocery shopping, we eat whats in reserve, soak dry beans, thaw last weeks on sale chicken breast and pressure Cook em, make a flatbread and have some curry.
Instant pot helps too. Thinking about getting coturnix quail to feed good scraps to and get eggs out of. I can plant cover crops for em on the last strip of lawn I have.
It doesn’t have to be wasteful forever.
It’s not for everyone, or even most people probably, but I deal with it by buying virtually the same thing every week, once a week. No impulse buying. So, I eat everything I buy, every week, because I know exactly how much I eat for each meal, each week. I waste nothing. I don’t need a list, I know the path through the store I will take, and I’m in and out in about 20 minutes, including checkout.
I decided to stop thinking about food as entertainment or reward, and now think of food as only nutrition (as much as I can, it’s not easy, but that’s the idea.)
Meal plan. Write what you’re cooking for the week, buy only ingredients for that.
Anything uncooked goes in the freezer, you can defrost and cook/reheat a lot of food, stop throwing stuff away.
Problem is that some of us have freezers the size of matchboxes, so it is very limited what leftovers we can put in the freezer. It’s something I have attempted to tell my parents who have big freezers and lots of good ideas to how you can buy this and that in bulk and just freeze it for later and save so much money!! Cool. But my freezer is still the size of a matchbox.
That doesn’t stop you from Meal Planning ahead and only buying what you need for that week.
And leftovers can often make great soups, stews, and curries. They can last in the fridge for about a week.
Sure, but I just wanted to point out that some of us do not have freezers that can store a lot of food. Whenever I see people being like “just freeze the leftovers” I look at my freezer like “how?”. If I put a bag of beans, a bag of ice and some springrolls in there, it is filled to the brim.
People shouldn’t assume that everybody have tons of space to store perishable foods. That’s all.
In my household we usually go for small packs of food when we shop groceries. Meats and vegetables etc. We go for small sizes because we don’t want to end up throwing out food. It’s not cheaper, but it is less wasteful in the long run.
I gave multiple ways to reduce food waste. You only responded about the freezer and clung to it, you’re still talking about it. If you have your own method to not waste food then this post and my comment aren’t about you, stop playing the victim.
I’m not playing victim. I’m just pointing out that some people have tiny freezers.
Then use any other of the methods suggested, stop going on about freezers!
You really do not have to be this aggressive, my dude. I don’t have meal planning issues, I just wanted to bring up one aspect of meal planning that doesn’t always work for everybody.
People work with what they have, I just wanted to mention the thing about freezers because people tend to always assume that everybody has a lot of freezer space, which isn’t the case. That is all. No need to get all bent out of shape over it.
I have a reasonable sized freezer, not a huge one, but I feel like if I put a bag of ice in it I’d have very little space. Ice cube trays will leave you with more room.
Very true! It does feel like playing tetris with that little box sometimes, haha.
This is valid and identifiable!
Protip: Save up, buy a dedicated freezer. Like a “redneck hunter’s garage” style one. Nothing fancy, just a white box with a dial on the front for how cold you want it. Cheaper than the fancy flashy fridge freezer combos, and much more usable space (although you have to stack stuff inside). A lot cheaper than you’d expect. They also come in a variety of sizes, from small to “I need space for three bodies”.
Awesome. Where should I put it? I live in a small apartment. My kitchen is the size of a shoebox.
If you have space for like a bedside table, or a coffee table, or even a table table, you have space for a small chest freezer. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in the kitchen.
Looks like the average small ones are only about 3.5 cubic feet. I’ve rarely seen 1.2 cubic feet ones as well.
That said, if all you have is one of those small kitchenettes with barely enough space for a microwave, you’re kind of kneecapped in terms of food prep in other ways as well.
Pro tip
Move to a bigger house
Can’t afford it atm. Not everybody is rolling in money xD
Pro tip: earn more money
What a wonderful community this is.
Drawback, you’ll likely have to defrost those regularly.
Defrosting isn’t a big deal. I decide what I want to eat tomorrow, I take it out the freezer and put it in the fridge, by the time I want to eat its defrosted and good to reheat.
Edit: ignore me, I was thinking of defrosting food not defrosting the ice build-up in the freezer
Pretty sure they mean in terms of scraping out ice that can build up on the walls of the inside.
Oh of course! Now I feel dumb.
I’m lucky my freezer has some anti-frost thing built in so I haven’t had to yet, but yeah my old freezer was a pain for it.
We cook and eat the food.
Go away, you tankies with your common sense
Consider cooking it, then you have something to eat.
I love cooking, just can’t ever get motivated to do it
If your problem is you buy ingredients but can’t be arsed to turn them into food? Resist those beautiful fresh veggies and go get the frozen bag of the same thing. Not only will it keep until you really want to cook, it’s already washed and cut, and it has all the same vitamins. Since you’re already saving money, splurge on the better brand.
Also, go ahead and get some prepared food for no-cook days that are still cheaper than delivery. If you’re inspired to cook that very day by a particular ingredient, make it a simple way, because shopping and stowing is also a whole chore.
Have you considered cooking simpler dishes that require far less work?
Here’s a simple one:
- Brown one 1lbs of ground beef (takes about 10 minutes) in a skillet
- pour off the excess liquid fat (not down the drain of your sink. Put it in a container and throw it in the trash if you don’t plan to use it for another recipe_
- Add 3/4 cup of water to the meat in the skillet
- one pouch of this:
Stir the contents of the pan on and off for about 2 minutes.
You now have a 1lbs of taco meat.
Empty a bag of lettuce into a bowl. Scoop out the taco meat and put it on the lettuce.
Sprinkle cheddar cheese on top of it.
You’ve got taco salad and it took you a bit less than 15 minutes.
A couple of strategies depending on the problem you’re dealing with:
- if you don’t have time, make simple meals that minimize prep. There are cookbooks dedicated to this concept and highly recommend picking one up. “30 minutes or less” meals were a god send for me in college.
- if you don’t like the food you’re eating, explore new types of food. This is often a more expensive endeavor as it may require you to buy new spices, cookware, etc. again, cookbooks are a great help here. Most Americans eat a combination of Italian and Mexican food. Try making your own Chinese or Indian food.
- if you are lazy, consider a food prep day. I do food prep on Sundays and makes cooking through the week much faster and easier. Also helps to cook large batches that can refrigerate and reheat in the microwave or toaster oven. Make dishes that taste better with age. Chili, marinated dishes, etc. fall into this category.
- if you’re too lazy for that, then eat out and don’t cook. If you value not wasting food over your money, then this is the best choice overall. It’s the most expensive option but if you’d rather not cook and have the resources to just eat out, then do so.
Lack of motivation (assuming you’re not neurodivergent) often is a result of not having a plan or you find the activity tedious. If it’s the latter, I’d go the simple route and try to keep your cooking as easy as possible. This is essentially true if you’re new to cooking.
If it’s the former, consider meal planning. I plan my meals a week in advance, taking into account left overs I already have, left overs I’m planning on making, food I need to buy, and other factors.
If you’re neurodivergent, I’m hesitant to provide advice as I am not a doctor but I suggest talking to your therapist about it and seeing if they can help you.
Sounds like you have an answer.
I finally found the answer to all problems in my life: just be motivated to do things. I’ll start tomorrow…well, next week at the latest.
Then stop buying it.
But then they have nothing to eat.
They’re not eating it either way.
But they have it
I only buy fresh stuff if I’m going to cook it that day, otherwise frozen or canned. Then I also always buy food that takes little to no preparation and/or make a lot of anything I’m making when I have motivation and freeze that for the days (which are most days for me) when I’m stuck with no motivation. So I always have some food that’s easy to make or just heat up that won’t go bad (at least within a few days). I can’t say how it is where you live, but here in Sweden there’s been a great increase in the variety of frozen veggies etc. Stuff I’ve never seen before like many kinds of beans, mushrooms, avocado, some salad types etc. which is awesome since they keep for much longer.
I sought an ADHD diagnosis.
instructions unclear, my prescription erased my appetite and now all my food goes bad
Be organized, have a weekly menu. I’m sorry this is the solution. My bad.
“the only solution is being responsible” well fuck guess I’m SOL
I feel exactly the same way, man. I fucking hate this shit.
This isn’t “THE” solution though. Plenty of other options. My favourite is meal prepping - spend three hours cooking for the entire week, put it in the fridge. Instead of an hour / hour and a half each day. You only have to clean up after yourself once too.
Issues are you need to prepare things that reheat well, or that you can quickly “cook up” each day without it taking too long. I.e. “just add the sauce to the salad” type of deal.
