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You are here: Home / Naturally Frugal Living / Guidelines to Eliminate Food Waste

Guidelines to Eliminate Food Waste

May 8, 2009 by Alea Milham Leave a Comment

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We wasted food again this week. Well, actually my husband wasted food because nobody else would have opened this can of olives to begin with and if they did they would have transferred the contents to a glass bowl with a lid per mom’s food saving guidelines! Unfortunately, my husband is the only one who likes olives; even my 16 year old garbage disposal does not eat them. So the responsibility for finishing olives rests squarely on my husband’s shoulders. However, the responsibility for keeping the refrigerator free from rotting food is mine and these olives clearly should have been included in an earlier food waste post!

The guidelines I usually follow to eliminate food waste:
1. Store unused food in a clear container, so we can easily see what is inside (This would not have helped this time; we all knew what was in the olive can and wanted no part of it.)
2. Make sure the clear container has a lid. (This might have helped as the olives have dried out and I think the white stuff is residue from the evaporated liquid and not mold.)
3. Rotate food, putting food that needs to be consumed on the top shelf. (This was done, but still no takers!)
4. Have a plan for unused food. (I need to remember to pull out the olives on salad night, so that my husband will remember to eat them.)
5. Clean out the refrigerator the day before shopping day and include food that is about to go in dinner that night. (I have done this, but have repeatedly overlooked this can of olives. So I must remember to include food that I consider inedible, even when not spoiled, in leftover night.)
My goal each week is to have no wasted food, this is the second week in a row that I have had to post an ugly picture. I resolve to have no waste at all next week, but I will not go so far that I will begin eating olives!

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About Alea Milham

Alea Milham is the owner of Premeditated Leftovers and the author of Prep-Ahead Meals from Scatch. She shares her tips for saving money and time while reducing waste in her home. Her favorite hobby, gardening, is a frugal source of organic produce for her recipes. She believes it is possible to live fully and eat well while spending less.

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Welcome. I'm Alea!

On Premeditated Leftovers I share simple recipes made with whole foods, practical shopping tips, time saving techniques, and meal planning strategies. I also share tips for minimizing food waste, so more of the food that is purchased ends up on the table.

While volunteering as a budget counselor, I realized that food is the element of most people’s budgets where they have the greatest control. I set out to develop low-cost recipes from scratch to prove it’s possible to create delicious meals on a limited budget. Eating well while spending less is about more than just creating recipes using inexpensive ingredients; it’s about creatively combining ingredients so you don’t feel deprived and are inspired to stick to your budget.

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