Here are my strategies:
1. Take advantage of seasonal produce. It's cheaper, better for you and you can take advantage of bargains. Menu plan accordingly.
2. Access resources to utilise leftovers. Even better, LOOK at what the family is leaving on their plate or what excess you are cooking and adjust serving sizes to suit. Unless of course you are deliberately cooking a double batch for future use.
3. Optimise shelf life of food with correct storage principles immediately upon getting produce and pantry goods home. Allow sufficient time to do this properly. It takes me about an hour and a half to unpack my groceries, but everything is stored in airtight containers or other appropriate plastic or glassware. This also means I can buy generic brands, and nobody notices and complains as they're none the wiser!
4. Rotate food appropriately. This means doing a mini stocktake of refrigerator contents daily and pantry contents monthly, in order to use food before it spoils and has to be thrown away. This takes about 30 seconds to do in the case of the fridge and about 15-30 minutes for the pantry, so less than an hour a month. This has the added bonus of not ending up with five packets of thyme, and three tins of curry powder because you are constantly aware of what you have, and what needs replacing.
5. Before throwing any food away, I line everything up on the bench and do a mini cost calculation of what I'm actually throwing away financially. This is a great awareness tool in itself.
I calculate that I can save between $100 and $400 a month employing these strategies. You can too!
...Mimi...
