Amy Maas

I have containers in the freezer of beef and chicken stock. Every time I prepare meat and have leftover stock I add it to them for soups later. 

I usually make a dump soup of some sort. Chili is good to incorporate a lot of leftovers, especially veggies, but meats, rice, beans and potatoes can all be incorporated into chili.

I love adding eggs and making leftovers into breakfast scrambles. I've found it to be an especially good way to use up leftover veggies and french fries or tater tots.

The Downtown Target in Minneapolis has limited produce options, most are wrapped in plastic. I will go to a different grocery store, such as Lunds or a farmer's market, to buy produce that is MN grown, plastic free, or smaller sizes. Even though other grocery stores are a little bit farther of a walk, I'm grateful I have multiple options!

My grocery store offers a lot of options for buying loose produce, which is great! I need to be better about thinking ahead of time about how much produce we realistically need for our week's meal plan. I could also be better about buying more items from the bulk goods section.

I will break up my produce shopping into twice weekly trips using a local CSA and the local Farmer's Market rather than one big shopping trip where I "stock up" for the week and get too much. 

I think it might be bread! We don't eat a lot of it, so we can't seem to use it up before it goes bad. I think I will start freezing half the loaf or something. I wish they sold smaller loafs! Second is probably produce. Especially lettuce. I also noticed a never opened tub of feta cheese in the back of the fridge that had gone bad! Urg! I think keeping a fridge inventory is really going to help avoid this type of thing.

I tend to throw vegetables and meat out more than anything else. Every week I have lofty goals of being healthy, buy all the healthy things, and then don't eat healthy. I'm also nervous about food safety and throw things the moment they get a wrinkle or are a day past a 'sell by' date. I switched over to having my groceries delivered by Shipt to eliminate the impulsive buying and that has lowered my costs and waste but I still have PLENTY of room to grow on safety and storage guidelines.

My fridge is not as full of unused foods as it was after I carefully started watching what I buy. That included planning out what I plan on cooking during the week. For example, right now there is a bag of organic lettuce, about to expire. I hate it if it goes wasted. So I will make sure the lettuce will be used by tomorrow. I try to involve all family in regard to checking the fridge before we cook or shop. It's a team effort, and we're working hard trying to keep everyone informed about what's in the fridge. 

Some of the food that most commonly goes to waste in my household includes produce that we bought too much of, such as extra lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, etc. When doing a fridge cleanout, I also tend to find leftovers that were forgotten, the ends of bread or the last few tortillas remaining in the package, and half jars of sauce that I don't trust anymore. 

A few strategies that would mean less food waste for us: making sure to only buy the amount of produce we need (luckily my grocery store has lot of options for loose produce!), making sure to use up the ends of bread or the rest of the tortillas before moving on to the next package (incorporating these into lunches would be a good idea), and working in to our meal plan meals that use up the extra sauces we tend to have left over.