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

[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.

[AnyDream]

I fall down when I buy fruit and veggies - I'm always mindful of having a rainbow-coloured selection of F&V, and i have an upright fridge instead of an upside-downey (oh I dream of an upside-downey) so there's often something that gets left mouldering at the back. It's pretty small though, but I always feel quite liberated when the shelves empty up.

ALSO - I find when I'm in control of menu choices & cooking dinner, a lot less of the fresh gets wasted...DH however has some kind of fridge-blindness going on. In fact he has very poor fridge-mojo, shoves all sorts of things into inaccessible and illogical spaces.

[~Kim~]

Great article Trill.

We have a FP upside down fridge. It's pretty big but has a 5 star energy rating. We also have a chest freezer and 2 smaller fridges we have accumulated - but these are only plugged in when needed.

I love our fridge. The crispers are just fantastic. The shelves are at eye level and there are enough shelves that little hands can't reach.
We keep stuff we use regularly (grated cheese, frozen veges etc) in the fridge freezer and individual dinners that have been frozen for lunches etc.
In the chest is all our meat, bread and icecream (so the kids can't get at it).

I am pantry anal too. Everything has a container (and a label ) so it is stored properly. I have baskets in the pantry that are categorised according to what they are used for, and all the extra stuff is in rows. I know exactly what's in there, where to lay my hand on it and what I need to buy at a glance.

DH can't see anything in there though

[luna moth]

We eat our fridge out of stuff every Friday or Saturday, then market shop on Saturday (and often come home and knock something together with anything left from the week before)
Our pantry is LOADED but it's loaded with staples, like four kinds of rice, a few packets of pasta, noodles, beans, legumes, flours, sugars, seeds and nuts (as vegans our seed and nut turnover is high) There's always crackers, too, so we can throw together nibblies at short notice. We have a large range of classic sauces for cooking from scratch, and they get replaced as they're finished. Always cans of tomatoes, coconut cream, curry paste, beetroot etc. We try to use as little canned stuff as possible because the food miles are horrendous, and it's expensive.

Our freezer contains ice cream, frozen bread, peas, spinach, icy poles and vegie schnitzels.
Fridge has an extra margarine, always. Vegan cheese, cream cheese, tofu, tempeh, vegie sausages. These all get replaced on the next big shop after we've used them, which can be 2-3 weeks. There's also about 6 blocks of chocolate, we just buy heaps when it's on special, and the abundance mentality stops us from eating it. Most of the time!

Our fridge is small - it's a 230L. We struggle to fit stuff in if we're preparing for a party or a barbecue, or if we've had a really big cook up with big leftovers, but generally we're OK.

Like you, Bath, we only buy what we can carry - usually on a bike. But we don't go daily. Weekly or twice weekly.

We bake our own bread as we need it, so we never chuck any out. If there's any that's about to go, it gets ripped into crouton sizes and frozen. Then we just spray it with oil, bake for 10 minutes and use with salads or soups. Easy.

I lived in a very poor developing country as a teenager and have carried incredible waste guilt ever since, so we very rarely throw anything out. The bin guys have actually been known to come onto our property to get our bin; they were worried that we'd forgotten to put it out 6 weeks in a row, only to fin it had a single bin bag in it.

[Trillian]

I think the most valuable thing to take from that article is just what the waste equates to, especially in terms of methane production from rotting food gas emissions as well as the amount of resources that go into production. Luckily for us our dog is a living waste disposal unit LOL.

[luna moth]

what the waste equates to, especially in terms of methane production from rotting food gas emissions as well as the amount of resources that go into production.

And the emissions that go into carting it away on the rubbish truck. And don't go thinking "Oh, but the truck comes anyway" If it comes, and is only half as full, it has to do fewer trips. A lighter load means lower fuel consumption too.

Waste is bad, mmmmkay?

[Bathsheba]

Lots of great points! Our hen eats lots of our scraps too... if the kids waste an apple by taking a few bites and discarding it... leaving it lying on the floor somewhere I'll pick it up and take it out to Tina who polishes it off even if it's brown. She's off the lay ATM but hopefully come Spring she will reward us with an almost daily egg again.

Fridge is still almost empty but I have just returned from the supermarket near DS's school with a tray of 5 chicken sausages (used by tomorrow but we'll have them tonight) that cost $1.60 and a small tray of marinated chicken wings that cost $2.40 (also used by tomorrow but will use tonight). Also bought a French stick that was special for $1. So from this I will make up a very cheap meal of chicken sausages, wings, mashed potato (grown in our garden so virtually free, haven't had to water them either!) gravy and some carrots, cauliflower, frozen peas and served with garlic bread made from the French stick. Easily slips under $10 for the 4 of us. If I can get away with not doing a big shop next week either (and just buying daily specials) then that's our electricity bill almost paid for!

ETA: oh I have also lived on next to nothing and had about $20 a week to spend on groceries, including toiletries... when I was in my early 20's and on sickness benefits due to badly breaking a leg and needing knee reconstruction, couldn't work for about a year... lived in a share house with other poor students as bad off as me... our fridge was always grim... but we made do... ate at the Hare Krisha place in the city several times a week where you could get a three course meal for a gold coin donation. But maybe because they were some of the best years of my life I don't mind "returning" to the empty fridgeness of it all

ETA: oh and I have also turned our fridge down to it's lowest setting... middle of winter... figure it's safe.