When I first started eating healthy, I would go to the grocery store with my long list of recipe ingredients, only to find myself having to toss quite a bit of produce by the end of the week. Eating fresh produce is way more expensive that the boxed garbage I’d been used to buying, so this was really disheartening and frustrating.
Over the years, I’ve learned many tips and tricks to make sure having to toss perfectly good food is not the norm. See the chart below from SparkPeople for the most comprehensive list I’ve found in an easy-to-understand manner. Print it and post it by the fridge!
Additional notes:
Bananas. When they start to go bad, peel them, halve them and then place them in a freezer bag with as much air squeezed out as possible. I’ve heard people say to even use a straw to suck out as much air as possible but this momma just doesn’t have time for that lol! Then when I’m getting low on bananas, I just use these for smoothies. These do not do really well for anything else, just so you know.
Apples. If my apples become too soft to eat or have minor blemishes, I core them and then blend them with a little water to make no-bake applesauce. My girls gobble this up but you can use it for baking too!
Fresh Herbs. Herbs are very delicate and can go bad very quickly which is a bummer because they’re pretty pricey. One cool trick I do is wrap them loosely in paper towel and then place in a zip lock bag. I store them in the fridge unless it’s basil or I’m going to use them right away.
Green Leafy Veggies. There is nothing worse than having to dump a big container of soggy spinach into the trash. These are the most nutrient dense foods and we want to get the most out of them. To help keep them fresh, loosely wrap them in a dish towel to remove moisture.
On-Their-Way-Out Veggies. If you pull open a drawer in the fridge and realize you forgot about the bag of carrots you bought a couple of weeks ago, toss these types of foods into a big pot of soup. I call this my DIY Soup recipe as you really can throw pretty much anything you want in it and get some more mileage out of your groceries.
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