Food waste fails

[Looby]

We luckily have fruit and veg loving dogs so apart from grapes, onion and garlic, we can get away without throwing too much away.

 

[SheilaNaGig]

Sweet potatoes. All too often the supermarket doesn't have loose ones so I buy a whole bag but then I only use two and the rest go bad.

Do you take them out of the plastic bag and store them in a cloth bag in the dark?

Storing food properly makes it last better.

 

[SheilaNaGig]

fruit, and recently, carrots - which very quickly turn to mush left in the bag.

Leaving veg in the plastic bag guarantees it’ll go off sooner.

 

[SheilaNaGig]

I'm pretty good and generally everything gets used somehow. Though I did chuck half a jar of gherkins today that I found had a big old layer of mould on. I never thought pickled gherkins could go off

They didn’t.

The brine can grow a mould while the pickles are perfectly fine beneath.



ETA
Google for mould/mold on brine

 

[SheilaNaGig]

Cooking food that’s about to be too old extends it’s fridge life, including meat.





ETA
For the pernickerty, please note I’m not suggesting cooking food that’s actually off.

 

[nogojones]

They didn’t.

The brine can grow a mould while the pickles are perfectly fine beneath.



ETA
Google for mould/mold on brine

The brine at the bottom and bits of pickled garlic were all soft and smelled rank as well. Normally I wouldn't worry, but it did seem a touch too much today

 

[SheilaNaGig]

The brine at the bottom and bits of pickled garlic were all soft and smelled rank as well. Normally I wouldn't worry, but it did seem a touch too much today

Should have diced them into some day-old rice for a snack.

 

[gentlegreen]

Leaving veg in the plastic bag guarantees it’ll go off sooner.

whereas left out they dry out or go bendy

 

[8ball]

Every so often some milk goes off, or I go walkabout and a couple of tomatoes go manky, but that’s about it.

 

[SheilaNaGig]

whereas left out they dry out or go bendy

You can still eat them like that. They're not rotten, they’re drying. Actually getting more concentrated. Okay the vitamin C is degrading but there’s other stuff in there that keeps.

Slice them up, thread the discs onto fishing line, hang em up, bingo dried veg.

 

[SheilaNaGig]

You can still eat them like that. They're not rotten, they’re drying. Actually getting more concentrated. Okay the vitamin C is degrading but there’s other stuff in there that keeps.

Slice them up, thread the discs onto fishing line, hang em up, bingo dried veg.

Honestly, I’m only half joking.

 

[NoXion]

Half-empty packs of bacon sometimes get left in the bottom of the fridge for too long before going all dry and horrible. This has also happened to packs of sliced cheese. Had to throw away some unopened Polish sausages yesterday because they had been sitting in the fridge for a month past their use-by date.

Then there was that time I left a lidded saucepan half-full of beef bolognese in the bottom of the fridge for several months. Even though I wrapped my mouth and nose in a t-shirt before scraping it out and cleaning it, just the sight of what was inside made me gag terribly. I didn't even smell it, but the vile miasma that emanated forth was positively Lovecraftian in its biliousness.

 

[gentlegreen]

I only really like carrot raw, stir-fried or juiced, though I'm chucking bags of Chantenay into my stews at the moment.

 

[NoXion]

I feel this thread requires musical accompaniment:

 

[gentlegreen]

I haven't had a fridge for years so I have to buy fresh veg twice a week during the summer.

 

[joustmaster]

It was always a bag of salad. But I've started buying the living salad (sainsburys). Its the same price and lasts 2 or 3 weeks.

 

[NoXion]

I haven't had a fridge for years so I have to buy fresh veg twice a week during the summer.

Opposite of me, then. Fridgeable stuff is central to my diet.

 

[8ball]

It was always a bag of salad. But I've started buying the living salad (sainsburys). Its the same price and lasts 2 or 3 weeks.

I bet I could eat it faster than that.
If I ate salad...

 

[Chz]

They didn’t.

The brine can grow a mould while the pickles are perfectly fine beneath.

Some of the better Polish shops will sell gherkins out of a bucket of brine that's probably been going for a few years. They just scoop off the mould whenever it appears and give it a stir. I love the flavour of those, but all the crunch unfortunately goes out of them.

 

[gentlegreen]

I like Polish pickles - esp. beetroot and red cabbage with apple - because they're so lightly pickled, but they go frothy if not eaten up within a couple of days.

 

[UrbaneFox]

Bananas always seem like a good thing to buy but I eat one or two and the rest go manky.

Last night I forced myself to eat two v ripe bananas, but there's still one left.

Managed to avoid buying more today, though.

Still tormented by two haggard sweet potatoes in the veg tray. They were on offer.

 

[Cid]

Aubergines... I have good recipes for them, but they're a bit of a faff and get left to the end of a cooking session (and consequently not bothered with).

 

[Sodapop]

Carrots. Buy them every week with great intentions. They go off so quickly these days

 

[farmerbarleymow]

White sliced bread. I don't use much of it but it's nice to have beans on toast or a toasted sandwich or an egg salad sandwich...but I'm often left looking at half a loaf gone mouldy by the end of the week.
Annoying.

I've recently started freezing half a loaf

I do that too - otherwise I end up binning half the loaf.

Jars of stuff. Jam, other spreads. I buy a jar because I fancy it at the time. Having had a serving, I no longer fancy it, so it grows fur.

Same here - I need to do a clear out of the fridge of several jars of stuff that have been living in there for several months.

 

[Micro]

Sweets.

The kids come back from their granny’s or the elderly neighbours with their pockets stuffed with them. We let them have a few and then they get put away ‘for later’, after which they completely forget about them.

There’s a bag on top of the cupboards full of the horrible things. I empty it into the bin every so often.

 

[Baronage-Phase]

Sweets.

The kids come back from their granny’s or the elderly neighbours with their pockets stuffed with them. We let them have a few and then they get put away ‘for later’, after which they completely forget about them.

There’s a bag on top of the cupboards full of the horrible things. I empty it into the bin every so often.

That is honestly the first time I've ever heard of sweets as waste.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

That is honestly the first time I've ever heard of sweets as waste.

It's criminal to throw sweets away.

 

[Baronage-Phase]

throw sweets away.

Does ... not....compute.....
Does ... not....compute.....

 

[RubyToogood]

Oh yes, jars of things. Not jam, but things like pepper paste, sun dried tomatoes. I have phases of using them and then stop.

Got a jar of pepper paste I need to deal with at the moment. Inadvertently got the spicy one which limits its use to a spoonful in soup or whatever.

 

[gentlegreen]

I just built a new larder so I finally have to face the remnants of past enthusiasms for plum sauce and chutneys. (My local shops are quite small so I have to grab good stuff when I see it.)
Thankfully most of them will be fine long after their sell-by dates.