As someone who prides themselves on frugal grocery shopping, using up leftovers creatively, planning meals precisely and clearing out the cupboards every few months, I am curious to see how true this is of my family.
So begins this blog. For the next year I will record what food I do indeed waste. Everything from the yoghurt I bought without reading the expiration date, to "that" thing in the container in the back of the fridge (we all know what that's like). Even take-away food is counted in that figure.
I hope keeping track of this does two things:
- I hope it shows me just how much I've been wasting. It's too easy to look at facts and figures and assume that they don't reflect me individually, that there's some super-wasteful person at the other end who is tipping the scales. I hope to learn what I waste and just how much my household contributes to this national figure of $8 billion dollars of waste each year.
- I hope it helps me to be a more conscious consumer. Nothing like writing down how much you waste to motivate you to save, shop smart and get creative with the leftovers.
Here's a quick snapshot of my household:
There are three of us living at home, myself, my husband (H) and our housemate (HM). We're an odd little family, but it's never boring in our house. We eat most dinners together. As I'm the one with the grocery passion, I do the planning and shopping and enjoy it!
Usually in a week we eat 3-4 planned meals, have a night for leftovers, a GYO night (get your own) and a night or two out with friends or at another persons house. We all brown-bag our lunch (as the Americans would say). Our grocery budget usually falls between $80-$100 per week depending on who we have coming around for dinner.
So this should be fun. I'll be starting from today - counting everything we waste from 24th March onwards, which is good because it means I don't have to mention the poached chicken incident of last week....
Yearly Waste to Date: $0 (looking good so far!)
