Are you Guilty of Having ‘Food Clutter’?

Does your family have a lot of food clutter? You know, the unused portions of veggies, rice or pasta from last night’s dinner that no one wants to eat? Those little bits of bread or rolls left in the bag or the uneaten popcorn? Or the two for one special that you couldn’t pass up? It seems that no matter how much we try to save money, it’s easy to buy too much food for our family and create unnecessary waste. It’s really a shame that so many people throw out perfectly good food. A recent poll announced that Americans throw out at least 30% of consumable food. That’s akin to throwing one meal into the garbage disposal a day! Wow, that is too much, especially when so much of the world’s population goes without the luxuries that we as Americans take for granted every day.

To help reduce some of this food waste, here’s a great resource I learned about from fellow Professional Organizer Lorrie Marrero of the Clutter Diet. This website, based out of the UK, asks you to type in leftover ingredients that you have and it returns a recipe to use up these ingredients, instead of throwing them away! What a wonderful idea to reduce waste and create new healthy meals for your family. Here’s the link if you’d like to check it out yourself: http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com.

Another way to reduce impulse food purchases is to always make a list before going to the grocery store. Just like when making merchandise purchases, each food purchase you make should have a specific purpose for buying it. Here’s a handy grocery list pad that you can affix to your frig. and ask family members to circle items as they are depleted – All Out Of pad. Then take that list to the grocery. No need to write out a grocery list each time.

Originally posted 2008-09-17 15:16:23. Republished by Blog Post Promoter