How does everyone deal with this dilemma?
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Please don't waste food.
fun fact: we grow enough food to feed 15B people. It's just that we feed it to the animals, then eat the animals.
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with pen and paper
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Then eat the food
don't mind if i do!
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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.
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My problem isn't that I don't use what I buy, the problem is that I buy too much. Like the recipe I need calls for one stalk of celery, but I can only buy an entire celery plant, like 11 stalks in a bundle because that's all the store offers. What do I do with the remaining 10 stalks?
Keep them in the fridge. Find other recipes that use celery. It’s quite versatile and keeps for quite a long time in the fridge! A lot of French recipes call for mirepoix (celery, carrots, onions; all diced) and Italian dishes call for soffritto which is the same thing. A ton of soups and pastas use mirepoix/soffritto as a base.
Now get out there and cook some celery, carrots, and onions!
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My problem isn't that I don't use what I buy, the problem is that I buy too much. Like the recipe I need calls for one stalk of celery, but I can only buy an entire celery plant, like 11 stalks in a bundle because that's all the store offers. What do I do with the remaining 10 stalks?
That’s your Mel planning, although I’d eat celery by itself.
For example I just bought a bunch of fresh dill because I needs it for one recipe. However I found a side dish that also used dill. Then the next morning I made bagels and lox with fresh dill, and successfully used it up.
I have a harder time with spices and sauces: so many sitting on my counter because they don’t fit in the spice cupboard. However at least they last a bit, giving me more chances to finish them
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fun fact: we grow enough food to feed 15B people. It's just that we feed it to the animals, then eat the animals.
But do we really want 15B people?
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But do we really want 15B people?
it's probably gonna happen eventually. We really can't sustain too many more people on an animal based diet
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But do we really want 15B people?
The billionaires do, otherwise their tiny little egos will shatter for not feeling speshul
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The billionaires do, otherwise their tiny little egos will shatter for not feeling speshul
So that's why Elon makes all these kids ...
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Honestly services like Blue Apron help with this. It’s more expensive than buying your own groceries, but still cheaper than eating out. It also helps you learn meal planning to eventually be able to buy the right amount of food on your own.
(It is easier to do if you have more people to feed though, like ideally at least one friend/partner/roommate to share the subscription with you. You can do a 2-3x a week meals for 2 subscription for one person, but it’s a bit much.)
so much trash for a single meal though
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Costco rotisserie chickens rock my fucking world too. Those things can be more than one meal!
CAN be? That chicken is larger than a human baby.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Well, there certainly are """"people"""" (Nationalist Christians, aka Nat-Cs) who think I am skilled and experienced at eating babies, so... I guess???
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Meal planning is overwhelming to me, so I made a habit of rotating a selection of staple meals with fewer, more stable ingredients. PB or eggs scrambled with cheese on toast for a breakfast. A salad of chickpeas, carrot, broccoli and avocado with a whole-wheat roll, or a lentil/rice bowl, for lunch. Precook larger batches of freezer-friendly staples like chickpeas, lentils, rice, turkey burgers, meatloaf, tomato gravy - reserve 2-3 days' supply and freeze portioned batches of the rest. Allow yourself less experimental ingredient buys per grocery run - so if it turns out they don't synergize with your staples, you're not accumuating a lot of dead-end ingredients.
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If you're doing 1-a-day, a rice cooker can be a great simplifier. Throw a measure of rice & your protein into the cooker, some rough chopped veg if you like. 2 minutes prep. While it cooks, make some kind of a sauce - yogurt or mayo make great bases, just add whatever spices you like; gochujang or miso thinned out with some soy sauce, citrus, or vinegar. When the rice & protein is done, pour on the sauce, add some pickled veg if you like. 800-1000 calories, depending on how much fat is in your sauce, one cooking pot, one eating bowl. 20 minutes start to finish.
Rice is especially great because it's one of those dry goods that i can keep for basically indefinite quantities of time.
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fun fact: we grow enough food to feed 15B people. It's just that we feed it to the animals, then eat the animals.
We also throw away approximately half the perfectly good food we produce in the U.S.
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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.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]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.
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If you don't have a good sized freezer, buy one. There are small ones that fit in any home.
Too many veggies? Chop them up and put them in quart sized containers. You can add them to any soup or stew.
I have a five quart pot; make chili/stew/soup and freeze in pint size containers.
My house has a good freezer, here's the first i searched out as an example.
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Clean-up is what stops many people. Get a good titanium no-stick pan - I like "Our Place" pans. Get individual portion meats or frozen meats or buy bulk and freeze in portions. Do the same with vegetables. Heat your seasoned pan up then put some oil in just before you put meat in. Cook meat until almost done, then add vegetables to same pan - heat them up. Serve. Let pan cool while you eat. Refrigerate left-overs. Rinse and wipe pan down. Wash dish. DONE.
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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.
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".
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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".
Drawback, you'll likely have to defrost those regularly.
