Poll of the Day > SO much food goes bad as a single guy living alone.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Like raw meat for example - I have to make the whole damn package since they give you so much, and I'd prefer not to store raw meat after opening the package.

Bags of salad expire quickly and there's a ton of it, so you basically have to scarf down the whole thing in a few days or it expires.

Don't even get me started on bread. If I want a loaf, I basically have to have a sandwich a day if I want to finish a bag before it gets moldy and I have to toss it out.

Eggs have been better recently because I can just hard boil them 6 at a time and have those for breakfast over 2-3 days. But still.

I'd open up a grocery store that specializes in "single people living alone." Reasonable amounts of servings to limit food waste.

inb4ExpirationDatesAre#FakeNews

EDIT: Realized I'm not actually single, but I mean, living alone though. That's the important point.
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I totally agree with this topic but it definitely falls under "first world problems".
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On average how much do you eat a day and why don't you store extra stuff in the freezer? I recall my local market does sell loaves of bread that are probably just a dozen or so slices. Maybe I have never noticed them but usually they last over a week.

SmokeMassTree posted...

Buy meat from a local butcher, it's cheaper and fresher, plus you can buy as much or as little as you want.

And then there's this. Most markets have butchers as well. Avoid the pre-packaged stuff and just ask for the amount you want.
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That's weird, when I lived alone, I bought a shit ton of food and it almost never went to waste, because I knew exactly what and how much I eat. I'd prepare my meals once every 1-2 weeks and freeze them. I'd eat 1-2 dozen eggs a week, plus a lot of egg whites, turkey bacon, and wheat toast for breakfast, so bread and dairy never went bad. Usually drank around a gallon of milk a week too.

Nowadays, we have food waste all the time, because my wife always wants to buy stuff I know we're not going to finish before it expires, plus she's not really into preparing meals in advance like I am. She's like "no don't worry, were going to eat 12 bell peppers this week, I'll make chili" then at the end of the week we have 11 stale peppers in the refrigerator.
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Yeah, the portions of basically anything aren't meant for 1 person.

Bread is easily the biggest offender, so I basically don't buy it. But if I do I freeze it and just thaw portions of it at a time.

I eat a lot of spinach, but spinach only seems to come in quantities meant to feed an army, so I almost never finish it.

Meat I buy in bulk, then individually wrap and freeze them, then only thaw what I need for that meal.

Pasta is a damn nightmare for sauce. You could make. Like 4 meals off one jar of pasta sauce, but for the most part I just end up tossing half the jar away. You can get around this by just making the sauce yourself.


Basically, the freezer is your best friend to prevent food waste if you live alone.
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sounds more like you're just being a lazy slob but I don't know you so I could be wrong
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I only have issues with some fresh produce. Meat you can portion out and store frozen. Bread you can freeze a loaf if you need to and thaw the slices you need. But produce... You do have to consume that pretty quickly. The farmers market last year was good for fresh things and then I couldn't finish it off fast enough.
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If you start meal prepping, it helps.

Usually I make four meals per 'cook session' because that appears to be what the standard is for making meals.
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Oatmeal is dry so it doesn't go bad. Rice and legumes of all types are dry and even after cooked, last long in the fridge.

Potatoes also last long in the fridge. I boiled a whole bunch and it took me a month to finish them and they tasted the same as the first day.

Bread also lasts for weeks in the fridge and like Dynalo says you could freeze it.

Eat more of a plant based diet

I technically don't live alone (yet), but I basically buy all my food. I eat PB&J e'ryday, so I have no problem with bread. As for meat, I just get frozen nuggets, hotpockets, buscuit sandwiches, etc. from Sams. I don't eat salad (the green kind), so that's not a problem.

The thing I have issue with is when I get a craving for roasted chicken or chicken salad, it's like a race to eat it all before it goes bad. Milk is also kind of a pain because I can drink about 2 quarts of it before goes bad, so I have to choose whether to make extra trips to the store to get 1 quart jugs, or buy a gallon and waste it.
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Doctor Foxx posted...

I only have issues with some fresh produce. Meat you can portion out and store frozen. Bread you can freeze a loaf if you need to and thaw the slices you need. But produce... You do have to consume that pretty quickly. The farmers market last year was good for fresh things and then I couldn't finish it off fast enough.

I agree with this. I wonder if this is the reason for the stereotype of bachelors loving microwave convenience food. I used to just eat all that stuff because I was lazy and didn't care, but since I've tried eating it less, I realize why people still fall back on it. It's nice buying produce and all, but I can't get through anything other than fruits without having to throw it away, and that gets frustrating.

I think lettuce is the worst, like who do they intend that shit for? You could make salad for like ten people with some of the heads/hearts they sell. I buy romaine and two leaves makes a decent-sized salad, but it barely makes a dent in the heart. And it dries out pretty quickly.

How come I can find individual sweet potatoes, but I can't find russets, redskin, yukon gold, etc. in anything but 3 or 5 pound bags? That's way more than I need. Even if I cook a big potato salad or something that will last me several servings, it still leaves me with like 2/3 of the bag.