I have been freezing milk for years. My friends think it's weird but it works. We buy milk in bulk when it is on sale, freeze the extra. I have never had it go sour. Great tip!

Other than cooking up leftover pasta (we just eat it cold), we're already doing all of the other ideas. They are a good start though.

However, I think far more food is thrown away in commercial settings, where employees deal with heavily processed foods often individually wrapped, and strict regulations that make creative reuse an impossibility.

For example, think of all the uneaten food that is thrown out in school cafeterias all over the country every single day.

I actually just thought of this yesterday when walking through a food court.. seeing everyone with their styrofoam containers, thinking about how a lot of people don't finish that food and just throw it out.. seems so very wasteful. And even people who do finish it.. we could probably eat 3/4 and still be satisfied, but we're used to finishing what's put in front of us.. so it's either contributing to waste, or to our waistline... not good either way!

Our waste food goes to our pig. It's a yummy way to recycle.

Meal planning.

Every week, I make a plan of the exact meals we'll eat every day, then determine what we need to make it all and how much of it we need. That is our grocery list. Nothing more.

Keep a list on your fridge door, listing the food inside that's on its last legs and needs to be used up first. It's a good way to keep track of what you have, and helps avoid wasting half a gross old tomato that got shoved to the back and forgotten about.

I second meal planning. Sometimes it's a bitch to do (honestly, since there's just two of us in the house the temptation to just order pizza is hard to fight) but it is well worth it. Plus it keeps me from running to the store every day for, like, one potato.

Lately, I can't predict how much of what I cook will actually be eaten. You know, sometimes the boyfriend devours an entire chicken, and sometimes I just have a small bowl of the huge pot of soup. I've started freezing a lot of things and keeping a running inventory of what's in the freezer. It helps to keep the freezer from getting overstuffed and it helps me on the nights when I want, but can't afford, to just order pizza.

Growing up, any vegetable food scraps went into a compost pile, and all else went into a 'doggy bag' in the freezer, literally for my grandparents farm dog.

I worked at a cafe a few years ago in a bookstore that sold sandwiches and pastries, and every night we had to throw away the waste, products that were past their prime date. It was a lot of food, and we were under strict guidelines that it MUST be tossed or we would be reprimanded. No giving away.

Now I've been trying to figure out ways to be less wasteful at home. Just last night I made a huge batch of dumplings (recipe from the Kitchn!), directly froze half, ate some and the rest are for lunches for the rest of the week. I try to take stock of what produce needs to be used before I plan cooking for the next couple of days. It's more work, but I hate throwing money away.

I agree with bakingstone - the root of the problem is really in commercial operations. I'm an event planner and work with caterers a lot, and it's kind of obscene how much food is thrown away after big catered events. Caterers are able to donate some food, but anything that's been left out on a buffet for a few hours/been picked at by guests legally MUST go in the trash. At least the support staff does its part by eating up as much of the leftovers as possible :) But yeah, a single catered event for a few hundred people probably generates as much food waste as my household generates over several months.

Not to mention the amount of ugly/day-old produce (which is perfectly fine to eat) that grocery stores throw away. *shudder*

If I just need a small portion of something - say, half an onion - for a recipe, I'll often stop by the salad bar and just get what I need. And I've stopped buying things in bulk just because the unit price is cheaper... if I throw something out because it goes bad, that's not "cheaper". :)

At the restaurant where I work, even if the customers take one look at the food and refuse it, it's still trash because it has left the kitchen and illegal to reuse. Probably 90% of our garbage consists of perfectly edible food.

One of my favorite tips, suggested in that list, is to keep a bag of veggie scraps in the freezer. Ends of carrots, stems from fresh herbs, garlic trimmings, corn cobs and mushroom stalks all go in. It's a great way to get some deeply flavored stock for FREE. I love to tell my husband, "look, I can make food out of TRASH!" Okay, so that isn't too appetizing, but I do love to use everything up!

You can freeze milk, but, as it says in the article, not if you really want to just drink it afterward. It's fine for cooking, but the texture suffers; the more fat in your milk, the more separated and grainy it will be after thawing.

so here's something I've always thought about: I live in the los angeles area where there is a large homeless (and I'd assume hungry) population. When I go out to eat, I always have something left over, it might just be rice or a single piece of pizza, or just some other random scraps that I am either unwilling or unable to cart home. What do you all think about me, the patron, giving this leftover restaurant food to a homeless person? Would that be disrespectful to offer up my leftover food? Would that be a good use of the food? Could I in some way be legally liable if that person got sick after eating the food? What are your thoughts?

@caliH-- I've done this before.... If they're claiming to be hungry, then I don't see it as disrespectful. The food isn't dirty, and it's a better alternative than digging through the garbage or none at all... <$0.02>

We've been fighting this issue for the last few years--as we are aging (both in our 50s now) we find we are just eating less. It has been a big adjustment to get used to making less in the first place--even accounting for freezing meals for later and planned overs for lunches, many of our favorite recipes just make too much. So I have been learning how to cut back the amount we cook in the first place--and our food waste rate has gone way way down.

caliH,

I live in the Bay Area where there's a sizable population of people who are on the streets. I've taken a kid off the street for lunch and bought a burger for a person on my way out of a restaurant. Sometimes, people are not hungry or they'd much prefer money that they could use to buy something else. But almost every time I give my leftovers from cafes etc. to the guy or woman sitting on the sidewalk outside, that person is REALLY glad to have it.

I always ask first if they would like the food, rather than assume and throw it at them. And I try to look them in the eye. There are probably many and complex reasons people end up hungry, cold, and maybe ill people. I think it's great you brought this up and that you care.

"hungry, cold, and maybe ill" on the streets.

caliH, I've absolutely done this. I invariably get a doggy bag when I can't finish my dinner, and if a beggar intercepts me, I simply say, "I have a single piece of pizza/some leftover chicken curry/whatever here, would you like it?" I think it's not disrespectful to offer it, because to me it's not garbage - if I don't meet anyone, it's my lunch tomorrow. I only offer parts that I haven't contaminated, though: a pizza slice with no bites taken out of it, not the second half of my personal bowl of soup.

I've had every response - from accepting with gratitude to (usually polite) refusal because they really wanted cash for something else to detailed dissection of what was in it (e.g. "is there meat on it?" "does it have cilantro?").

That's really kind of you who buy food for the homeless.

I used to work for a food company. There were times we had to throw out huge pallets of perfectly good canned food. We could not give it away because of legal concerns. It's sad to think that these are some of the ramifications of our sue crazy society.

Yeah, the sue-happy mindset is definitely the reason. I worked for a restaurant where we had expiration times for all the food that were based on "freshness standards" or some bullshit, rather than food safety laws. Salads had to be sold within 12 hours of prep, grilled sandwiches within 2 hours, etc. A few times I illegally snuck food out and offered it to people hanging out in alleys, or ate it myself. (They also had a rule that staff couldn't eat food that was made by mistake or whatever, understandably so we wouldn't just make too many of things or screw up orders to get free food, but seriously?)

If you look deeper into waste statistics, you'll see that the vast majority is from commercial enterprises, not private citizens. These tips are useful, but if every individual never wasted a scrap, there'd be nearly as much waste as there is now due to the considerations many have already mentioned in terms of restaurants, markets, and catering.

The toughest part for me is being realistic about meal planning. I might buy groceries for 3 meals that I plan to make during the week, but in actuality I'll only have time to cook one of those days.

One of my favorite things to do, if I'm ordering Chinese food, is to get the sauce on the side. Not only can I control how much is going into the dish, but I can use the leftover sauce and rice (plus whatever veggies I have on hand) to make a quick and delicious fried rice the next day.

I have made a purposeful decision to try to waste less food after I was continually throwing away SO much food. I only buy what I absolutely KNOW I will cook/eat. As a result my refridgerator stays pretty bare

AYCE buffets - they have to throw it away after a few hours even if it's untouched.

Also, I work at Wal-Mart and often have customers change their mind about cold/frozen items once they get to the check-out. Since we can't guarentee how long it's been out (even if it's still cold), we are required to dispose of it. Often it's large cuts of meat or gallons of milk...even if this was composted, it's still a lot of wasted energy because of someone's carelessness.

What I have been glad to see is that recently stores in our area seem to have been given more local control about use of expired/nearly expired food. I know several stores have arrangements with shelters for bread and produce. One store that in the past only did corporate markdowns has started giving departments more flexibility in making markdowns so food can go home with the customers at reduced prices as opposed to in the trash bin.

The local grocery stores in the area used to donate old produce to cattle farmers in the area....boy do cows love produce....anyways, somehow that's not allowed anymore. So there's more waste added to the list.

My husband and I recently started to try to eat for $10 a day, for each of us just to clarify. It really has helped us consume what we own. I also freeze items that are leftover, or make it the next nights meal just to make sure it's consumed. As for the onion and tomato dilemma, I've learned to only buy what we'll actually use. I don't experiment with random veggies or fruits that we won't end up liking. It kind of makes us sound like we're stuck in the mud, but honestly, it helps keep dollars in our wallets and food out of the trash can.

I totally dislike the packaging waste. We fortunately have a great pick-up recycling plan through our city and I also refuse to buy anything in styrofoam. Plastic containers w/ lids work great in place of tupperware, you know, those classic ways to deal with the packaging.

Whenever I cook something I've started packing half the pre-prepped stuff into the freezer if I know we can't eat it all in a few meals (we like leftovers, generally). For instance, a while back I cooked a huge spaghetti squash and packed more than half of the cooked plain squash into the freezer. Last night I thawed in in the microwave and topped it with homemade sauce! I did the same thing with an enormous pot of beans I made the other day.

Figuring out different ways to eat leftovers is also key. Those beans made at least three different meals: beans with cornbread, beans and rice with tomatoes, bean tacos with tomato onion pickle and sour cream. They could have also been made into soup, pureed or mashed for a spread, or served as a side to a meat dish.

I always take home restaurant leftovers, unless it's like only a bite or two left. They make a yummy lunch the next day!

One last tip: packing leftovers into lunch-friendly containers not only means you're much more likely to bring lunch to work (healthier and saves money), but also means you'll eat the leftovers. For hot stuff, especially soup, I find that wide-mouthed pint mason jars work wonderfully. Just grab a spoon and a piece of fruit in the morning and you're ready to go!

Oh, I love that Francis Lam!

Also, we freeze our milk for drinking and haven't had the texture/taste issue. (I do shake it up pretty good in the jug before pouring.) I say, try it once. You might not be able to tell, then you can just go for it.
I also paid a friend to make us a "milk cozy" so that it could sit out on the table, protected from light, while we eat in case someone wants a second glass. It's great.