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Archives for December 2020

Smart shopping and $aving — not just for the holidays!

December 21, 2020 //  by Karen

Happy Holiday Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers!

As we head into the final stretch of this unprecedented year, we hope you are discovering some new and creative ways to experience holiday cheer this season. Not to mention good bargains (no matter which holiday you shop for)!

Those holiday sales at the grocery store can sure make it difficult to stick to a shopping list — especially with lures like “Buy one/Get one!” (BOGO) and “Rewards”! But we all know from experience what happens when we don’t… and then the bank card statements arrive. It also tends to result in wasted food and wasted money.

Shopping lists are certainly a lot more high-tech now than in the bygone era pictured above, but I still prefer an old-fashioned paper list (soon to become an antique as well?). There’s endless apps for your smart phone, or you can download and print out our “Smart Shopping with Meals in Mind” form.

Over $7 billion spent in 2020 online grocery shopping

Shopping sure looks different now than it did at the beginning of the year, doesn’t it? We’ve de-coupled socializing and shopping, and learned to keep our distance in the store aisles. We stand on colored circles on the floor as we wait for our turn at the checkout. Online grocery sales in the U.S. grew from $1.2 billion in August 2019 to an over $7 billion industry as of June 2020.

On the plus side of online grocery shopping —  we’re pretty much forced to use lists! Whether you’re ordering through a local supermarket chain, an independent market (like NFLB and Sustainability Coalition partner First Alternative Co-op), or a non-local supplier, you have to get organized and be very specific (quantity, brand and other attributes). With service fees and tips on top of that grocery bill, we are likely to be more careful with our ordering.

Another plus — when someone else is fulfilling your order, it’s easier to resist impulse buying and off-list purchases!

On the down side — the carbon footprint associated with online order fulfillment and delivery, including all that packaging! And don’t forget your vehicle emissions from picking up your own order. For more information on the environmental impacts of food packaging, check out NFLB’s links to Oregon DEQ’s Food Fact sheets.

One of Karen’s recent shopping lists

KAREN CONFESSES: There are definitely times when I don’t use a shopping list… and I always end up having to go back for the things I forgot or really needed!

Sometimes I find myself “pigging out” on spending for extra treats or costly specialty items. While I enjoy being spontaneous in the store on occasion, those indulgences certainly add up.

Stick To The List so you don’t “pig out” with your shopping cart!

At this stage of the 2020 holiday season, Conscientious Food Consumers and Shoppers, we realize you may have already completed the bulk of your holiday shopping. So consider how the following tips can facilitate your “Smart Shopping and $avings” heading into the New Year:

  1. Shop your fridge/freezer and pantry first! Be sure to make notes as appropriate on your Freezer Inventory.
  2. In the spirit of eating locally, keeping our shopping dollars in the community (at least some of them) — and potentially reducing the carbon footprint of your purchases — consciously decide which items you can Buy Local First, either in person or online.
  3. Skip those BOGO deals, “family sized” meals or quantity packages unless… you can realistically manage that influx of food products. Assess your household’s eating habits and the state of your pantry. Are you sure you can properly store, plan and prep it all before it loses its freshness and store appeal?
    — Maybe your two-person household hasn’t eaten its way through the Thanksgiving leftovers in the freezer yet.
    — Do your kids really like that brand of cereal enough to justify buying a big box or two?
    — Does your fridge really have room for most of that five-pound bag of tangerines? (They shouldn’t be kept outside of cold storage for more than a week.)
    Don’t be tempted to “save” a few dollars on food that will eventually go to waste!
  4. Use a shopping list app like Big Oven (if you don’t already have one).
  5. Take a “Shelfie”! If you want to make sure you’ve remembered everything for your list, take a quick picture of your fridge or pantry shelf for reference. Shout out to Love Food/Hate Waste and WRAP in the U.K. for this clever name and idea!
  6. For even more ideas (and your New Year’s resolutions), scan this list of 75 tips for saving $$ on food from TheKitchn. We don’t necessarily endorse all of these, and some are not that original or relevant to our region. But we’re pleased to see No Food Left Behind’s standard recommendations in the top five of the list!

Do you have some Smart Shopping tips you’d like to share? If so, please submit them in the comments section below.

Happy Safe Holidays, Conscientious Consumers!!

Category: Kitchen ConfessionsTag: "shelfie", Big Oven app, BigOven.com, Buy Local First, Corvallis Sustainability Coalition, First Alternative Co-op, food packaging, Freezer inventory, Holiday meal shopping, Love Food Hate Waste UK, online grocery shopping, Oregon DEQ Food Facts, Shopping lists, Smart Shopping Smart Strategy

Happy fridges for happy holidays

December 4, 2020 //  by Karen

Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers!

We hope your first (and hopefully last) Pandemic Thanksgiving was safe, enjoyable, and as waste-free as possible! For myself, I’m happy to report this year’s experiment with a smaller dinner party, smaller menu/portions and long-distance well-wishing worked out fine. No Leftovers Left Behind, either:

Veggie Thanksgiving

– No leftover turkey-wrangling for me this vegetarian Thanksgiving.

– The chanterelle orzo/rice and glazed carrots went great with sausage a couple days later. (I’m an omnivore.)

– The remaining half-carton of veggie stock I used in cooking the rice blended happily with leftover butternut, sweet potato, ginger and coconut milk into a tasty soup.

– The leftover sparkling wine made great mimosas!

– Next on the menu: leftover cranberry relish-glazed chicken thighs. And time to start a fresh series of Meal Plans! You can download and print ours here.

Hopefully this year’s Thanksgiving aftermath has also been a bit easier to manage for you, Conscious Food Consumers! So let’s all pat ourselves on the back, take note of lessons learned (if applicable) and get up for this next round of holiday meal planning.

Of course, the next round of planning, shopping and prepping also depends on making sure your fridge is happy! A happy fridge is well-lit, running efficiently, not overloaded (so it can do its job), and not over-inflating your utility bill.  Here’s some simple things you can do that will also keep your pocketbook happy:

  • Does your utility provide a detailed energy usage report as part of its monthly billing statement? (Mine does.) If your fridge is consistently using more energy than it should, improving its efficiency might be as simple as dusting off the coils on the bottom or in the back.  Or it could mean it’s time to upgrade — many utilities offer incentives through partners like Energy Trust of Oregon for replacing older appliances with new, energy-efficient models.
  • Regularly check your refrigerator/freezer temperatures. An ideal fridge temperature is 33°F to 38°F, and your freezer should be kept between 0°F and 5°F. Make sure the door gaskets for each compartment are kept free of debris and have a tight seal.
  • Make sure the cold air is circulating properly in both the fridge and freezer by not overloading and blocking the fan.
  • Consider freezing items that would normally take up space in the fridge “Eat First” area — like cheese, cooked grains, portions of tomato paste, or even knobs of fresh ginger. If you’re like me and can’t use an entire can of tomato paste in one recipe, you’ll appreciate the suggestion for freezing it in tablespoon-sized portions!

Download and print our Eat First! signs below:

Download and print our Eat First! signs...
in English or Spanish!

KAREN CONFESSES: My fridge has NOT been very happy lately! Sometimes it made noisy clunky sounds. It wasn’t keeping my food cold enough, even when I adjusted the interior dial. And frankly, it was overloaded! It was stressful every time I tried to “get creative” with the items on my “Eat First” shelf.

It was kind of like what happened in this fun video from our colleagues at StopFoodWaste.org in Alameda County, CA, “Is Dinner Hiding in Your Fridge?”:

Screenshot of over-full fridge from video

KAREN ALSO CONFESSES: I didn’t take my own advice before Thanksgiving about clearing out my “Eat First” shelf! Even with just a few leftovers, I still didn’t have enough room — so it was time for a refrigerator “reality check.” It didn’t take that long, and it really made a difference when I could see what was in there!

$$ WASTED: Hard to determine — at least $30!

LESSONS LEARNED: Freeze more/waste less, and keep rotating that Eat First shelf!

*****

Is this before or after Karen's refrigerator "reality check"? After! It actually felt colder in there...

JEANETTE CONFESSES regarding her Eat First shelf:  After we went grocery shopping and were putting stuff into the fridge, we had to do a mini-cleanout/consolidation to make room for new items! We discovered some non-perishables had migrated into the Eat First shelf and blocked the visibility of perishables… which then went bad.

And it didn’t help that the light bulb on the right side of the compartment had burned out!

LESSONS LEARNED: Multiple!

  • LABEL EVERYTHING (even the obvious stuff) with sharpie and masking tape: What is it, and date placed on shelf. Maybe even label the front of the item instead of the lid for better visibility!
  • Replace fridge light bulbs promptly so you can see what’s in there.
  • Be more proactive about removing non-perishables that migrate onto Eat First shelf — unless we really want to eat them first.
  • Try creating a Freezer Inventory form for the fridge’s Eat First shelf OR just be a lot better about keeping it more sparsely populated so we can SEE everything!
  • Remember: food kept as leftovers but never eaten is the same thing as tossing it out in the first place. Wasted food is wasted MONEY!
Left: Jeanette's Eat First shelf: TOO FULL, not enough light!
Right: Jeanette's tasty salad from items discovered on her Eat First shelf!

We hope our “lessons learned” will help keep both you and your fridge happy this holiday season!

Category: Kitchen ConfessionsTag: Eat First sign, Eat First smart strategy, Energy Trust of Oregon, leftovers, Refrigerator management, StopFoodWaste.org

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