How Many Items are in your Refridgerator? (Do you ever "Eat It Out"?)

[Phteven]

I like to think of my pantry as a mystery box.

[maz]

I like to think of my pantry as a mystery box.

mines a lucky dip hon

I like to have food in the house....especially coming from living on the streets and with a sister who never bought food.

If my kids are hungry I want them to be able to eat what they want. We dont have waist either...I cook nearly every day and once a week it left overs.

[Bathsheba]

I guess you have to do what works for you but I find that I am more inclined to "impulse" buy if I go into a supermarket with a trolley (with the vague intention of filling it) instead of just my arms Each day i buy only what I can carry. And if I can somehow manage to skip a day like I did yesterday when my boys were home with colds then all the better... love days when I don't spend anything. I also don't drive so even if I use a basket in the supermarket I only buy what will fit underneath in the cargo section of my pram.

ETA: I think it helps to be able to be creative and cook from scratch. Give me the basics: eggs, flour, milk and some flavours like vanilla etc I can whip up something. Scones, Breton Flan (only takes half an hour). My kids are usually happy with a big bowl of pop corn (the plain kernels, not the flavoured sachet things)... always a staple in our house that I bulk buy because it doesn't go off quickly. We eat cereal like muesli as a "snack" food too.

[maz]

impulse buy...sorry Bath...gotta have the $$$ for that

[~Kim~]

Depends what time of the fortnight it is but we don't really have a lot of 'stuff' in either our fridge or pantry. We throw out very little.
Recently we had to start two pantries from scratch after moving interstate and then long haul and I have been surprised at how little you really need in either to be able to even come up with emergency meals.
Lots of our stuff here (this is the middle of the desert though) has to be frozen. There is nowhere to get it fresh or local - it's logistics not choice. Therefore I have had to learn what lasts and what doesn't.
I have a couple of frozen dinners (leftovers enough for all of us) and emergency meals in the freezer and also the month's worth of meat and usually bread (seeing as it's frozen anyway we might as well buy it in bulk).
We also do at least two but usually more pantry dinners per fortnight to stretch the shopping out that little bit longer.

[Trillian]

Ooohhhhh! There was a really good article about this in the Daily Telegraph yesterday. I will see if they have it online and link it - it's too long to retype.

Anyway, we try to keep food wastage to a minimum but there will always be a small amount that is unavoidable. We compost all the food we don't eat though and then the dog goes through it all and eats what she wants ROFL. I don't have a lot in the fridge that wouldn't be used before it goes bad. Lately I have been buying less and only buying to replace what we use and it is saving me about $50-$60 per week now (that combined with everyday locked in low prices ) And I do always make sure I check use by dates to make sure we use stuff before it goes bad. BIL and SIL on the other hand have a fridge that is chocka-block full of rotten and half rotten food and it's foul! You open their fridge and all you can smell is rotten food. There is no room at all in their fridge for anything new to be put in there. But then you wouldn't want to put anything in there in case it gets contaminated by the rotting food. And MIL's pantry is shocking too. All non-perishable stuff, and really, who needs 10 tins of spaghetti and who knows how many more tins of pineapple, tuna etc? I'm convinced she buys the same things every week whether they need it or not LOL.

[Bathsheba]

My dear MIL, bless her soul, before she passed away had managed to accumulate over 30... that's right 30 jars of Chicken Tonight type sauces. She had over a dozen frozen chooks in her deep freeze, we know, we were in charge of cleaning it out! She just kept adding to the top. We found cake decorating ingredients dating back to the early 1980s!!!! They had the pre-barcode price labels! Good grief if it wasn't so disgusting it would be fascinating. Sadly DH's brother had the same lifestyle before he recently had to be levered out of his squalid flat.... DH found tins of food dating back to when he briefly lived with him in the mid 1980s... he shook them and they felt empty... even though they were UNOPENED! They had fused to the shelf and rusted mind boggling that some people live that way. ETA: DH's brother was a bachelor... but a teacher of over 50 years experience... reknown and awarded for his teaching skills... you would never have known.

[Trillian]

I found the article!

Waste not, want not



With just a little thought, we can make full use of all the food we buy and do our bit to keep the family and the environment healthy, writes Zoe Skewes.
There's an air of military precision about Jane Kennedy's kitchen. Though it looks normal enough with stacks of school newsletters on the bench and a pile of toys in the corner, Jane has something extraordinary going on behind the scenes.
Each week, when the cookbook author and mother of five returns from her fruit and veg market, she launches Operation No Food Waste.
Fresh herbs and vegies are stored in the fridge before Jane records each on her kitchen blackboard with the date of purchase.
Fruit is arranged in bowls within easy reach of her young brood and carrots, cucumbers and celery are cut into bite-size strips and placed in airtight containers in the fridge.
The final step in Jane's mission is divvying up perishable products, such as barbecue chickens, into dishes to ensure each part is used.
This no-nonsense approach to food is borne from Jane's preference to encourage her family to choose healthy food options, a need to keep her family food budget in check and also from her personal resolution to waste as little as possible. "My mantra is 'hidden food is wasted food'," Jane says. "If you've got something lurking in the back of your crisper and you can't see it, you'll never see it and you just won't remember it's there."
Some of Jane's favourite quick family meals come from a barbecue chicken, which she turns into such dishes as soup, Vietnamese chicken salad, casseroles and stock,
which she then freezes.
Jane's system is nothing more than commonsense, but it's nowhere near common enough.
New figures have lifted the lid on modern waste habits to reveal every NSW household bins more than $1000 of food each year.
This alarming statistic, released by the New South Wales Department of Environment and Climate Change in its Love Food, Hate Waste campaign, refers to edible food.
That means, despite our virtuous intentions to turn last night's beef stew into tomorrow night's shepherd's pie, the reality is we won't. While updated figures for other Australian states and territories still are being quantified, the Australian Institute conservatively estimates that as a nation we waste more than $5 billion worth of edible food each year, equating to more than three million tonnes and a staggering 136kg per person. As someone who secretly hopes for leftover lamb roast in anticipation of souvlaki for dinner the following night, such recklessness is hard to comprehend.
Don't people use Tupperware? Don't they realise curry actually tastes better the next day?
Food Wise founder, Jon Dee, says not. The current NSW Australian of the Year thanks to his campaigning against food waste, says a combination of shopping without a prepared list, bad food storage and lack of initiative to use leftovers are all to blame for our collective food wastage.
The most common food waste victim, he says, is bread. "Bread is the perfect example of food that is thrown away simply because it's bought when it isn't needed," Jon says.
What disturbs Jon even more than the amount of edible food wasted across the country, is what happens to it once it leaves the fridge or pantry.
Food Wise says when food waste rots in landfill it produces methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than the carbon pollution that comes from a car's exhaust.
"When we throw away food, we also waste all of the resources, fuel and energy that were used to get that food from the paddock to our plate," Jon says.
"For example, it takes 50,000 litres of water to produce 1kg of beef. So if you throw out some beef, you're literally throwing out tens of thousands of litres of water at the same time. If you buy oranges out of season, chances are they've come from California. If you throw one of those out, you're also throwing out a lot of food miles."
Though the situation seems dire, Jon says all is not lost. The first step in rectifying the problem is increasing awareness, the second is finding workable solutions.
As with Jane, Notebook magazine's food editor, Sarah Hobbs, is a freezer fan. Sarah uses it to store leftover bread, stock, grated cheese, soups and casseroles.
"I also keep nuts in small ziplock bags in the freezer," Sarah says. "They have a lot of oil and go rancid quickly so keeping them in the freezer helps extend their life."
And, if all else fails, make a frittata. "Frittata is your leftover friend," says Jane.
"Writing a shopping list is one of the best things that a person can do and it's guaranteed to save you money, because when you write it you're looking at your pantry and into your fridge and assessing what food you've already got. Then you can visit a website that lets you search for recipes by ingredients and you can plan some meals around the food you already have."

- Food Wise founder Jon Dee
Tips to reduce food waste:

• Write a shopping list that takes into account what you already have in your fridge, freezer and pantry, so you avoid buying something that you already have.
• Keep in mind perishable food on special may have a reduced shelf life.
• As soon as you get home from the supermarket, read the storage instructions on packaged foods. Then, if necessary, refrigerate them to avoid reducing storage life.
• Avoid overbuying. Remember, refrigerated foods are perishable and only have a limited shelf life.
• Keep an eye on your fruit bowl, as off fruit will accelerate the deterioration of the other fruit in the bowl. Separate fruit that is very ripe from the rest.
• Before you go on holiday, don't throw out your vegies and perishable foods. Turn them into pasta sauces, curries, bakes and other meals that you can freeze.
• You can make croutons from stale bread. Just cut into pieces and place in the oven to dry roast.

Source: Food Wise
Facts about food waste:

• Australian households throw out more than $5 billion of edible food each year. This is more than Australians spend on digital equipment and more than it costs to run the Australian Army.
• Most Australians don't consider food waste to be a problem in their household.
• The most commonly thrown out food is fruit and vegetables, followed by uneaten take-away food, meat and fish.
• About half of all municipal waste is comprised of organic material, most of which is household waste.
• The decomposition of organic waste is the main source of greenhouse gas emissions from landfill.

[briggsy's girl]

Bath - DH's brother was the same (and i guess, seeing DH shared the house when he wasn't working away, he too has to take responsibility) - there was a massive massive chest freezer in the house that we cleaned out to move out when his brother passed - and there was food in there that was there from before his mum passed at least five years earlier! the stuff the boys had thrown on top that may have still be in date and usable was wasted due to the packaging tearing or bags not sealed properly so all frost bitten. the fridge was just scary. there was an old oven in the laundry (ok, there still IS an old oven in the laundry) that had a fruit cake his mother baked just before she died still sitting in it (she used it to cool the cakes when she baked). there was some really old (early 80's old) stuff in the pantry too. i guess his mum should have cleaned it out too! BUT, in her defence, it was cake making stuff and it might have been more recent and just old packaging sitting in there. but neither of the boys had cooked anything in at least five years that used it.

i get really peeved at food wastage (probably why i have dogs - my own little disposal units lol). that was one of the things i was most distressed about after the fires. once all was said and done and our house was ok, i went home to the realisation it had been scorching hot and we'd had no power for an indefinite period of time. we'd only just done a massive meat shop and cook up for meals for DH, and we couldn't be sure it was ok, so were advised by authorities to dispose of all of it. our dogs and cat ate very well for months on that food (so it wasn't a complete waste!)

[mummato1]

We also try and eat down our fridge / cupboard supplied as often as possible.. and try to only do a shop every fortnight.

At the moment my freezer is almost empty, except for a loaf of bread and a bag of frozen berries!! Yet we still have enough in the fridge /cupboards to get through until Sunday.. its amazing what you can make with what you have when you really have a think about it!

A few website that I have found useful are 120dollarsfoodchallenge (Australian recipe blog on how to spend 120 a fornight for 14 meals), Love food hate waste (UK site but useful information), and taste.

I think our fridge is a 210 or 240ltr (from my days living on my own) and its is OK for our family of three for now.. Sometimes it gets a bit full, but usually its fine. I cant see the point of a bigger one at this stage.

[~me~]

I just had a look, it's looking very bare. I shop on a Thursday

We have a 300l fridge only and also same in Freezer (we stock it with meat from the Vic Market every 6wks or so).
I just made our dinner tonight from things only from my pantry and fridge..worked a treat.
I shop using a list..couldn't do without one. I have my list up on the fridge and put things on it as I run out. I only shop once a week for Fruit n Veg.
I also buy bread in bulk and freeze it as we go through heaps.
My pantry is reasonably full, not too bad though, it's mostly the staples. I always panic about running out of things like tinned tomatoes and buy 1 or 2 every week then I have 12tins so I sto buying them, then all of the sudden I go to the pantry to get one for whatever I am cooking and there is none

Right now I am rationing toilet paper, down to our last squares until I do my grocery shopping tomorrow

[Trillian]

Being out of town we have to have a deep freeze. Our fridge is 443lt with the freezer on top but we really need a bigger one so we can get rid of the 'beer fridge', which is a small 120lt fridge that DH keeps his beer in, but it is handy at peak times when we need the extra fridge space, so we are hoping that a larger fridge will make a difference. The deep freezer is 320lt. Ideally I'd love an electrolux 520lt - it has a 5 star energy rating in the old scale plus they are still made in Australia at Orange, which is important to me to be able to buy locally made products.

[Rouge]

Absolutely! All the time! It's how we live. We find we save so much money trying to come up with interesting cool ideas out of nothing.

[Floweryfields]

Well my fridge generally contains these things:
Sauces - tom, soy, worch, chilli
Butter, Eggs (home grown) Milk, cheese, yoghurt
Condiments - Jam, PB, garlic, ginger, chutney
Veges and fruit - salad mix, carrots, cabbage, capsicum, apples, zuchini, shallots, corn
And at the moment has beetroot (tinned), leftover fritters and lasagne.

I shop weekly or fortnightly as I impulse buy lots if I got to the shop everyday, costs me heaps more.

[Roryrory]

My fridge is running low ATM but I have far too much in my pantry - I like the idea of eating it out! Gonna meal plan for that this week

[luna moth]

Bath, your fish fingers meal sounds classy as! And delicious!

I ate out our fridge today, made a huge pot of lentil and vegie soup, ladled it into some containers, and dished it out around the neighbourhood. Got 8 limes, 3 onions, 2 bananas and a loaf of raisin bread in return

[briggsy's girl]

we have "staples" that we don't let run out that live in the fridge - half of one shelf is tinned fruits and other things like that which we replace as we use them (so if a tin of pineapple gets used we replace it next shop. there is always beetroot, pineapple, peaches etc. the other half of that shelf is cheeses - we buy cheese by the kg as DD likes it, plus we use a lot in cooking so running out isn't something we want to do.

the top shelf is for leftovers from the night before (we always cook more so that i have lunch at work and DH has lunch at home - doesn't take much to bulk out a dinner with extra veg) DD tends to eat leftovers as well. we live out of the main shopping areas (takes about 20k trip to get to a decent shop) so we tend to try to avoid the need for bread. we do buy and freeze, but if we can have leftovers, it is better IMO. also on the top shelf is anything likely to perish any time soon. things like salami or kabana if we buy it for DH, yogurt etc. we do a check of best before dates each week before we shop and either cook stuff that is going to go out of date soon

third shelf has containers with chocolate or choc biscuits, and a container with coffee for DH's coffee machine.

bottom shelf has a drinks rack - it has drinks (obviously lol), celery gets laid on top of the bottles, ummmm, cat food if we use a tin for him and it has leftovers, and then generally a container with table scraps for the dogs)

the crisper gets emptied every week - we will make soup or spag bol or pasta bake and mix everything in before we go shopping again. this weekend DH bought some broc and cauli so i will make vegie bake with that in it at the end of the weekend to use it up. if it is something like carrot/broc/cauli and we don't want to use it immediately, it gets blanched and thrown in the freezer.

we don't have a lot of waste here to be honest. i DO like having a chance to start fresh sometimes, but it's nice to NOT have and empty fridge atm given we're financially not in a great place. it's nicer to know we have SOMETHING we can have all the time lol

ooh, pantry wise - ours is lovely! all tupperware modular mates - if it was a better shape, it would be awesomely organised - i hate that we have to stack stuff behind each other! BUT, nothing in there is out of date. we check everything every few weeks and then pull out anything nearing it's best before, and it gets used. i find it unendingly frustrating though to open food that is in date, and its' stale anyway! tortillas have been terrible for that lately!

[smiles4u]

I like to have food in the house....especially coming from living on the streets and with a sister who never bought food.

... i was the same Maz, after my getting kicked out of home for no apparent reason as a teenager, at that time i remember one time only having 8cents in my purse for an entire week cause i rather go hungry then not have my bills paid (i had so much pride), and i remember one time having to have a bread roll for dinner as that was all i could afford

I never want for my DD to experience that ever in her life so my fridge & pantry are stocked but not overly stocked just enough without wasting any food.

I like to pride myself in that no one leaves my house hungry

In my fridge i always have at any given time the basics - skim milk, cheese slices, blocked or shredded tasty cheese, eggs, yogurt, marg, butter, mayo, juice, deli meat and vegies !!!

We have a 447Litre fridge/freezer for 3 of us ... freezer is always full but fridge area is probably too big for what we need but having said that it's a perfect size and well used when we have DD's birthday parties.