Food which goes to waste is exactly that – a waste. A waste of food, money, time and it's not good for the environment either. And if your family shops on a monthly or a fortnightly basis, you can have difficulty preventing that food from going off –
this can be a concern, even for weekly shoppers. This advice is aimed at those who, due to when they get paid or how far they live from town have a longer ‘shopping cycle’ – often going to the shops every two or four weeks.
Fruit and vegetables are perhaps the most common type of foods which go off. Especially if you shop less frequently than weekly, this is a big concern. Planning really comes into things here. Fresh veggies – using fresh veggies is a great idea, as long as you use them in time. You can prolong the life of your veggies by storing them in the fridge, storing them in a plastic bag or a plastic container in the fridge. A plastic container with a grill or ridges on the bottom will help to hold the veggies up out of any condensation which will help prevent them from going rotten. Lift up the corner of the container to help the veggies’ breathe. Don’t store new and old veggies in the same container – if the old veggies go off, then the mould may spread to the new veggies. Storing veggies in a plastic bag will help too. Freezer bags (like the ones you put the veggies in at the supermarket) are best for this, not zip lock bags. Oh, and you don’t need to buy special ‘veggie storage bags’ with ‘microscopic breathing holes’. You already have them! All freezer bags have these ‘microscopic holes’. (It’s to do with the cross linking of the polymer low density polyethylene or LDPE, just in case you were wondering!) So don’t waste your money – use the draw full of freezer bags you already have!
Fruit can be stored in the fridge to extend its shelf life. The skin on bananas will go brown in the fridge, but the insides will still be ok. Cut up fruit for little fingers will last longer in the fridge - not normally more than a day – but useful if you have time to cut up fruit for your little ones in the morning for them to snack on later in the day, for instance if you need to breastfeed baby.
Fresh fruit and veggies purchased from farmers’ markets and even fruit and veg stores usually last longer that produce from the supermarket. This does vary a lot – try your local markets and stores, get a feel for what gives the best produce for the best price.
But no matter how fresh your produce is and how well it is stored, it will still go off eventually. To minimise food going off, plan to have fresh veggies (or salads) for the first few days/ week after you have been shopping, and then rely on frozen veggies for the latter part of your shopping cycle. If you don’t get though all the frozen veggies, they can sit there for another week or two – not so with fresh veggies. Tinned fruit can be a good substitute for the later part of the shopping cycle, when fresh fruit would have gone bad.
Milk – that’s another item which is hard to make last. If you have the freezer space, you can buy all the milk you will need for your shopping cycle and freeze what would otherwise go off, but it does take up a lot of freezer space. Some don’t notice or don’t mind the change in taste after milk has been frozen (but some – like me – do). Another option is to buy fresh milk for the first part of your shopping cycle, and use long life (UHT) milk or powdered milk when it runs out. Again, some don’t like the taste but some don’t mind. We keep a container of UHT milk in the back of the pantry as a just in case anyway. However, neither of these options really sat well with my tastebuds, and so I just pick up milk on the way home every few days. Another option for some is home delivery – not so great if you’re looking to save money, but it certainly wins on the convenience stakes!
Meat – this is really simple as long as you do a little bit of planning. Some love the idea of doing a menu on a weekly/ fortnightly/ monthly basis which plans every ingredient of every meal, some just plan dinners and some people don’t bother at all. Different things suit different families, and ours lies somewhere in the middle. As long as I know that I have 12 lumps of meat in the freezer, and that I have veggies for 12 meals, then that’s the fortnight sorted (with two nights of cheese on toast/ 2 minute noodles/ omelettes/ take away). As long as you know what quantities of meat your family needs per meal (eg 500g mince, 10 sausages, 4 chicken breasts) then you can make sure that you have enough for your cycle. Again, make sure that you check what is left over from the previous cycle before you go to the shop/ butcher, and just add what you need.
For lunch meats like ham, freezing may be an option. If you don’t like defrosted ham, why not use fresh meat for the first part of your shopping cycle and things like tinned tuna and salmon for the second half.
I’ll talk about eggs here as well, and there isn’t really much you can do to extend their shelf life apart from keeping them in the fridge (they don’t freeze). If you’re not sure if they are still good or not, put the egg in a bowl of water which more than covers the egg. If it floats all the way to the top, it’s bad. If it is sitting flat on the bottom, it’s still good. If it’s just resting on the bottom and floating a little bit – use it quick! Again, things like tinned tuna may be a non perishable replacement for boiled eggs in salads or on sandwiches.
Pantry items like rice, pasta, biscuits, flour, sugar and the like usually last quite a long time if stored properly. Main thing to do – airtight containers! If you can keep the air out, you can stop it going stale, mouldy and you’ll keep out creepy crawlies like ants, cockroaches and weevils. If you have good quality plastic containers with a true airtight seal, then dry good can be stored for years. (Tupperware modular mates are fantastic but very expensive.) Empty formula containers usually have quite a good seal, and come free with the formula! Lower cost options include putting a rubber band around the top of a packet, sealing with a peg or a clip or putting in a plastic zip lock bag. The more air which is kept out, the longer it will last. An organised pantry will also prevent my pet hate - having three open packets of the same type of biscuit!
Tins and jars – obviously before these are opened you don’t need to do too much to preserve them. Don’t buy dinted tins – this allows the layers in the tin to be fractured and may rust. When opened, think about what you do with any leftovers as you usually only get a few days once the tin has been opened. If you use half a jar of pasta sauce, either make sure you use the rest in the next few days or put it in a plastic container in the freezer. Tinned fruit can be stored in the fridge in a plastic container (not the tin with clingwrap over it) for a few days. Tinned food often makes great substitutes for perishable items towards the end of your shopping cycle.
Bread can go mouldy very quickly, so unless you will use the whole loaf in a day or two (and are buying it every day or two) then you will need to think about bread storage. The obvious option is to freeze it, because even in the fridge it can go mouldy in a few days. Freezing bread can make it go a bit funny, but most kids don’t notice, and it won’t make a difference if you are toasting the bread. The big issue with freezing is the space. By the time you make toast and sandwiches for everyone in the family 5 days a week, you can very quickly run out of room if you don’t have a chest freezer. If you have a bread maker, obviously making fresh bread every few days is a good idea. Bread makers are obviously very expensive and bread is quite tricky to make without one. You can also buy bread rolls which haven’t been cooked yet, and all you need to do is pop them in the oven – may be a good compromise for some.
A quick word on leftovers – don’t let them become a waste of food. Either plan to cook more than you will eat and have it a few nights later for dinner or for lunch the next day. Otherwise, try not to cook more than you need. If you only need 400g of mince for your family, then only use that much, and keep the extra 100g in the freezer for next time. Don’t use a whole packet of something if you only need three quarters of it. Either eat your leftovers, or don’t make any. Anything else is literally a waste of food. I hope that these ideas help people to stretch out their shopping and to make sure that precious food isn’t wasted.
(May 2008) (
