Americans waste $165B in food a year

[SusanBAnthony]

This is so not us. We can't afford that!

We lost a ton when our electricity was out for 5 days, but that wasn't my fault. I hope they aren't counting stuff like that. On a weekly basis, the most we usually throw out is half a bunch of parsley, or something like that where i can't buy the exact right quantity. Or maybe the end of a carton of pre packaged lettuce that we didn't get to quite in time. But considering that it seems like most Americans eat mostly packaged and frozen junk, how is it going bad?

[SusanBAnthony]

Aug 22, 2012 19:58:34 GMT -5 jjwritergirl said:

I don't know how much we waste, but it's too much

So many package sizes are too big to finish before they spoil/stale/mold...

Can you give me examples of what? I am curious what you have problems with because we don't have this issue.

[bunch]

Ugh, this makes me sick, but we're guilty. Fresh produce that went bad before I noticed, leftovers that I couldn't eat one more day, yogurt that expired....

[GailGoldie]

we waste a lot between the kids wasting at each meal... me buying things (like fruits, etc) that they LOVE but then won't eat and it goes bad too fast, etc...

i just keep reminding myself that in a few years I'll have 3 boys eating EVERYTHING in sight and i'll have a hard time keeping food in the house for them- and there won't be as much waste.

[hannamaren]

We waste so much. Produce that we just cant get to. (or my H forgets about) Bread that dries out or molds, yogurt that expires. I recently bought a tub of cottage cheese for the baby, but how much can she really eat?

I blame the stores/food packagers too. It is often .25 cents more to buy a large tub of sour cream (example) but almost impossible to use the whole thing before it expires. We only use it for fajitas/quesadilla and pierogies. I will maybe use half a tub before expiry which still makes the larger tub worth buying.

Yesterday, I was in a store with 4 cartons of expired orange juice. It was a corner store type, but I guess OJ doesnt sell as often as he predicted.

[belovedbride07]

We try really hard, but sometimes we just aren't as on top of the produce as we should be. I'm pretty good about freezing other things so they don't go to waste.

And this is totally atypical for our household, but I'm going to toss a batch of homemade stovetop mac and cheese that we cooked last night. It's just too garlicky/shallot-y, and I can't bring myself to eat more of it. :-(

[Deleted]

DH fails to heck the produce drawer before he goes grocery shopping. We regularly throw out 1-2 half-eaten or moldy tomatoes. He buys a new one ever. Single. Week. Regardless of in-season. Because lettuce is just lettuce, but I'd you add a tomato it is instantly a SALAD. Eye roll.

[Deleted]

I don't think we waste nearly that much, but we do throw out some most weeks. Sometimes I get too excited about produce, and it goes bad so fast. I bought green bananas on Saturday that are practically rotten now... how do you buy enough for a week without going to the store multiple times? I'm running into the same issue with strawberries.

We freeze a lot of bread/buns so unless they end up buried and get freezer burn, we don't usually waste those. Ditto with meat.

[FrozenSunshine]

No way do we waste that much. It's just DH and I and we meal plan and rarely go off plan. We freeze all breads/buns. We grocery shop weekly by a list. We have the smallest trash bin available in Seattle and dispose of one bag of trash a week. We compost scraps and the occasional fruit/veggie we forget to use or goes bad before hand.

[Deleted]

no. I am really weird about wasting food. we meal plan and if anything buy too little. and I freeze things if they're close to going bad. bucky - I freeze browned bananas and other fruit to use in smoothies. if you bake you can also use them for fruity breads.

if we get something that we don't like (like the all natural almond butter SO just bought), I either offer it to a homeless person or send it home with my brother or sister when they visit. I just want someone to eat it.

[casmgn]

This is so disgusting, from a moral standpoint. Sadly, we are guilty of this too, although we have gotten much better.

[statlerwaldorf]

We lost a lot when our power was out too.

We have trouble finishing stuff, but we've gotten a lot better. Wer have been sharing a lot of poor stuff from lot garden and freezing it. We never finish a loaf of bread. I always think about freezing the rest for bread crumbs, but never actually do it. I have gotten better about baking banana bread and muffins. Dh always buys creamer, but never finishes even a small bottle.

[M]

I hate wasting food so H and I hardly let food go bad or throw out good food. We only buy what we know we can eat before it goes bad. Like milk we'll get half gallons knowing that we cant finish it before it goes bad even though it's cheaper to buy the gallon. We buy the smaller box of cereal knowing we wont finish it before it goes stale. All bread is fridgerated so it never goes bad. It usually takes us a month or so to finish a loaf also. Produce we buy what we need for the week or run out when we need it. We also cook just enough for dinner or eat left overs for lunch.

It makes me sick knowing how much people waste. I guess I feel sad for starving 3rd world countries that I just cant bring myself to let things go bad.

[M]

Aug 22, 2012 20:23:37 GMT -5 jjwritergirl said:

Aug 22, 2012 20:17:43 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

Can you give me examples of what? I am curious what you have problems with because we don't have this issue.

It's just me and my H, no kids. We have a hard time finishing a full loaf of bread before the end pieces mold. A bag of potatoes just went rotten (I still don't know why, this is unusual). A jar of con queso or salsa is likely to mold before we are interested in eating it all. We can't finish a full package of celery before it turns brown. And so on... I have tried to stop buying food we can't finish, but some things I still have to buy, like bread.

If you refrigerate bread it will last longer. I've kept bread like hamburger buns for 2-3 months before. It normally takes us about 4-6 weeks to finish a loaf. Potatoes like it cold and dark so also fridgerate that and they'll last a long time.

[AAM2012]

We tend to waste a lot of produce because we try to eat it all but it always seems to go bad.

[aspentosh]

Aug 22, 2012 19:58:34 GMT -5 jjwritergirl said:

I don't know how much we waste, but it's too much

So many package sizes are too big to finish before they spoil/stale/mold...

All of this. I don't always get around to cooking all the meals, either, so sometimes a pound of chicken will go bad. Drives me bonkers.

[aMrsin09]

This was me when I lived in the states, but it was also just me.

Since I moved overseas I/we have gotten much better with this. Food is too expensive to waste. Right now tomatoes are $9.98 a kg.

To make it easier we meal plan, and try to have the foods that go bad quickly first. I also make several trips to the grocery store a week on the way home from work. H has also started a small garden.

[6fsn]

Aug 23, 2012 5:08:10 GMT -5 aspentosh said:

Aug 22, 2012 19:58:34 GMT -5 jjwritergirl said:

I don't know how much we waste, but it's too much

So many package sizes are too big to finish before they spoil/stale/mold...

All of this. I don't always get around to cooking all the meals, either, so sometimes a pound of chicken will go bad. Drives me bonkers.

Put the chicken in the freezer before it expires and use it next time.

I don't feel like we waste all that much. The big thing right now is bananas, my 1 yo thinks she wants one, but won't finish it. At least I can say I compost the ends she doesn't get to.

I actually scope out the about to expire produce because it's so cheap and a fair portion can be frozen. Same with the close to expiring meat and yogurt.

[hannamaren]

You can cut a banana in half and leave it. Then just cut the nasty bit off. I do that with the baby all the time.

[anna7602]

Aug 22, 2012 19:58:34 GMT -5 jjwritergirl said:

So many package sizes are too big to finish before they spoil/stale/mold...

This. We wasted more food in the U.S. than we do in Europe. Things just don't come in the jumbo packages they did at home and I feel like that's better for everyone.

[anna7602]

Aug 22, 2012 20:17:43 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

Aug 22, 2012 19:58:34 GMT -5 jjwritergirl said:

I don't know how much we waste, but it's too much

So many package sizes are too big to finish before they spoil/stale/mold...

Can you give me examples of what? I am curious what you have problems with because we don't have this issue.

In the U.S., we had this problem with things DD ate. Like cream cheese, for example. She loves the stuff. But she could never eat through an entire container before it got moldy. Here, the cream cheese containers are super, super tiny. And, there are also serving-size containers (about the size of a yogurt cup) of "frommage frais," which is a cousin of sorts to cream cheese. DD gobbles it up.

The yogurts at home either came in huge family packs of 10-billion containers or cost a lot more, on average, for a single container. Here, I can buy a 4-pack no problem, and know we will definitely get through it before the expiration date.

I know you can freeze meats, but honestly, I don't really like the taste of meat that has been frozen. I'd rather buy what I need and cook it right then. If I couldn't get to a butcher counter at home, I often felt like my only option was to buy a big family pack of meat. I would take out what I needed, then stick the rest in the freezer where it would sit until I absolutely had to eat it because I was moving out of the country. Otherwise, it would probably still be there, which feels like a waste to me.

[Deleted]

This use to be us, but we have worked hard to change it. I HATE leftovers. So I have learned to cook smaller meals, so there won't be leftovers, but menu plan to use the leftover ingredients. So, we may have several meals that all contain one particular ingredient, but no left overs! We still have some produce that is hard to use up, but we give it to the chickens, so it doesn't feel quite like it's waste, it helps on the chicken feed bill.

[chessie]

I am not surprised..with the drought things are not lasting as long as they should, I actually just tossed 4 containers of berries only after 2 days old from the store. It happens, but we try our best, we use all our left overs and freeze the food when we can.

[mrshandy]

I'm really big on not wasting food. To me it's like throwing $$ down the drain. We eat pretty much everything we buy at the grocery store. We may have a condiment or two that will sit in our fridge too long and we'll have to throw out. But that doesn't happen very often.

Unfortunately, DS who is 2 has not learned the concept of not wasting food. So he is the big food waster in the family. But he doesn't eat that much so the impact is minimal.

I do hope to instill in him the not wasting food value as he gets older.

[mrshandy]

Aug 22, 2012 20:55:07 GMT -5 @buckybells said:

I don't think we waste nearly that much, but we do throw out some most weeks. Sometimes I get too excited about produce, and it goes bad so fast. I bought green bananas on Saturday that are practically rotten now... how do you buy enough for a week without going to the store multiple times? I'm running into the same issue with strawberries.

We freeze a lot of bread/buns so unless they end up buried and get freezer burn, we don't usually waste those. Ditto with meat.

Make some banana bread with those bananas!

[mrssavy42112]

I’m pretty good with not wasting food, but DH is horrible. He is really lazy to prepare his food, so a lot of his stuff gets wasted. Like he’ll take a package of meat/fish out of the freezer into the fridge & forget for a week. Or he’ll open a new package before the first is fully finished. That drives me NUTS!

[kadams767]

I am kind of a spaz about not wasting food. I'd rather underbuy than overbuy, because really, if we are out of things at the end of the week, it's not going to hurt us to have something from the pantry for one night. We always have pasta or rice and canned beans in the cupboard to fall back on. I'd rather do that than buy more than we need and end up throwing stuff away.

The best thing that has helped me not waste food is to plan multiple meals around common ingredients. For example, this week we wanted to make pizza, so I bought fresh mozzarella. We'll have pizza, caprese salad, and grilled vegetable paninis with that cheese so that we use it all and it doesn't go bad.

[ejpint]

The only thing we tend to lose is produce. It often comes in packages too big for the two of us to eat before going bad (like lettuce, celery). We tend to lose one banana out of a bunch. Sometimes the butt ends of bread get moldy. We do meal plan, so that helps.

My parents are terrible. It's just the two of them, but they buy produce from Costco in huge quantities, and they buy food like they're feeding an army. Every time I visit them, I find old, wilted, over ripe produce in the fridge. At least they compost, but still. I don't think they've ever learned how to shop and cook for two.

[vccake]

I can't believe how small our garbage is after composting and recycling. Composting/gardening has really made a difference in making good use of old produce.

[mrshandy]

Aug 23, 2012 9:27:13 GMT -5 ejpint said:

My parents are terrible. It's just the two of them, but they buy produce from Costco in huge quantities, and they buy food like they're feeding an army. Every time I visit them, I find old, wilted, over ripe produce in the fridge. At least they compost, but still. I don't think they've ever learned how to shop and cook for two.

My parents are the same way! There is just way too much food that they never eat in their pantry. I don't understand it.