Keeping food fresh

Food waste? Smell ya later.

Veteran FMFP readers know that one of our top personal climate change interventions is something simple: wasting less food. (If you missed the first food waste newsletter, check it out.) And while this can seem minor in the big California-is-on-fire-and-icebergs-are-melting picture, it’s anything but. The team of international scientists at Drawdown consistently place reducing food waste as THE top climate change intervention.

And while there’s a big systemic component to managing food waste (from farmer’s fields to retail stores, hospitals, and restaurants), it’s also something we can do easily in our own home, reducing emissions and conserving resources while saving money (an average of $1,766 per household per year for Canadians!).

There are lots of reasons we throw out food, including not knowing what we have, buying too much, and being unrealistic about what we’ll eat or have time to prepare, but this week we’re focusing on how to keep the food we buy fresh and tasty for longer. We’ve already looked at preserving food for the long-term, but this week we’re getting smarter about everyday shorter-term storage.

Hot tips off the top

Before we get into the nitty gritty, some general principles to keep in mind so less food goes from grocery basket to waste basket:

• Meal plan. I am an unapologetic meal plan evangelist, because it reduces our mental load and a ton of food waste. It’s not as hard as it seems, and it’s easier than figuring out dinner on the fly. More on meal planning in this newsletter.

• Look at your fridge before you go to the store. It takes 30 seconds and can prevent a lot of waste.

• Buy what you need. Though I love a bulk buy and see taking advantage of a good sale as a domestic flex, it doesn’t always make sense. Be honest about your storage and cabbage-eating abilities. Aim to buy fresh food a week or two at a time.

• Expiry dates are mostly a fiction. Unless you’re talking medicine, nutritional supplements, or baby formula, rely on your senses instead of the date, which is really a “best before” and there to help supermarkets with stock rotation.

• Once you open a package, transfer any leftovers into an airtight container unless you’ll use them quickly.

• Labelling and dating does your future self a big favour. I tend to forget the forgetfulness of my future self, and I always underestimate the value of labelling. Whether it’s jars in the pantry or tupperware in the freezer, adding a date is also tremendously useful. Some things sit around a LONG time, and if you don’t have that dated label, it’s all guesswork. My favourite labelling tool is a water-based paint marker, which is what I would put under everyone’s seat if I were the cheap Oprah.

• Plastic wrap isn’t really necessary. If you use half of something, say, a cabbage or a grapefruit, place it cut side down on a plate. If you have a bowl of something to save, put a plate on top. Otherwise, transfer things to reused jars or plastic containers. Beeswax wrap can be useful, but it’s pretty easy to get away without that too.

• Anything that you grind — coffee, nuts, grains, spices, etc. — will last longer in its pre-ground form. When possible, grind as needed.

Fruit and veg

• Don’t wash food until you’re ready to eat it and avoid storing fruit or veg wet.

• Loosen any produce from elastic bands and twist ties as soon as it gets home. Remove any mushy bits.

• Some fruits release ethylene gas, which can cause other produce to rot prematurely. So isolate those gassy fruits in their own drawer.

• Most fruits ripen best at room temperature, but if you want to slow things down, put them in the fridge. (I love doing this with avocados.)

• Separate green tops from root veg as soon as you get home, and store them separately.

• Store your onions, garlic, and potatoes in the pantry, but separate the taters from the alliums, which don’t like moisture. (I was doing this wrong my whole life!) Keep potatoes out of the light and they won’t get that greenish tinge, which also makes them less safe to eat.

• If you buy one of those clamshells of greens, once you’ve opened it put a tea towel or paper towel on top to absorb moisture and store it upside down. This is also useful anytime you’ve washed too many greens.

• I love storing cut carrots and celery in water in the fridge. It’s an easy grab-and-go snack and keeps them nice and crispy. Radishes and pickling cukes will also stay perky longer if stored in cold water.

• Leafy herbs do well treated like flowers, with the bottoms of their stems in water. Some people put a plastic bag on top to keep in the humidity. More pro tips on storing herbs here.

• I still store lots of my produce in plastic, which can extend the life of veg, but I rarely take a bag from the store: I reuse bags from bread, etc., and they work great. I can usually reuse those plastic bags at least a dozen times by shaking out or rinsing them if necessary and drying them inside out. Most vegetables will have the longest life inside the crisper drawer, which prevents them from drying out.

• If your leafy greens are looking lacklustre, soak them in cold water before using. This works for celery and many other desiccated vegetables too.

• Lots of fruit and veg freezes very well, and it can be a power move that snatches it from the jaws of the compost. I first freeze berries on cookie sheets so they don’t stick together, then store in a (reused) freezer bag. Some vegetables freeze better if blanched (boiled for 1 min, then dunked in cool water). Keep in mind that anything stored in the freezer door is most likely to suffer freezer burn, so use that space for things you’ll eat quickly (I put bread there) or stuff like freezer packs.

• For storage timelines and techniques for all fruit and veg, check out this handy chart from the James Beard Foundation. (That said, I often leave things longer than this! Your senses are the best guide of all.)

Dairy

• Keep milk and yogurt in the coldest part of your fridge (the top shelf).

• Cheese likes to be cold too! Don’t store it in the door (another no-no we did until recently). Storing it in its own drawer will help it maintain its humidity. Cheese also doesn’t love being wrapped in plastic, so cheese experts recommend rewrapping in parchment paper, and I use beeswax wraps. Cheese will lose its texture if frozen, but it can be fine if melted (a delicious cheese state!).

• Don’t put your eggs in the fridge door, even if there’s a tempting little egg holder there. It’s a trick! That’s the warmest part of your fridge, and eggs like a solid chill.

Pantry items

• Those healthy unsaturated fats in nuts and seeds will go rancid at room temperature in a couple of months. Storing them in airtight containers helps, as does keeping them out of the light, but in the fridge they’ll store up to six months, and in the freezer up to a year.

• Spices will stay fresh longer (up to two years) if you grind them yourself; otherwise they get a lot less potent after six months. Don’t shake spices directly from the jar to a steaming pot — you’re inviting in moisture, which will speed up their degradation.

• Most cooking oils will last up to a year in a cool, dry place, though sesame oil is best in the fridge.

• Flours should be stored in airtight containers in a cool, dark place, but can also be frozen: this is especially important for any whole grain flours, which go rancid more quickly. Bonus: if you have problems with pantry moths or other creepy crawlies, four days in the freezer will make sure they’re good and dead.

Bread

• I’m a huge proponent of freezing buns and bread. It’s fine fresh for a day or two, but after that I slice up my loaves, then defrost slices in the toaster as I need them (I mostly use bread for toast, the food of the gods).

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TL;DR

• Everyday choices add up, especially when we’re talking about food waste: buy consciously and store your food effectively and you’ll be way ahead of the curve.

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Wins of the Week

“I like to envision the whole world as a jigsaw puzzle . . . If you look at the whole picture, it is overwhelming and terrifying, but if you work on your little part of the jigsaw and know that people all over the world are working on their little bits, that’s what will give you hope.” — Jane Goodall

This week, here are a few things y’all are doing to tackle your part of the puzzle:

• Julie is giving the local co-op a spin!

• Crissy is darning up a storm!

• Sam saved scraps in the freezer to make delicious “garbage soup” — a delicious hack from the last food waste newsy.

Thank you all for all your little actions, which I genuinely greet with the enthusiasm that Zac Efron greets just about everything in Down to Earth.

(If you think I’m obsessed with this show, you’re not exactly wrong. And if anyone wants to forward this newsletter to Zac, I think he’d love it like he loves Costa Rican forest schools and “the olive oil of waters.”)

Until next week!

xo

Jen

Five Minutes for Planet is written by me, Jen Knoch, and edited by the incredible Crissy Calhoun. Opening photo by Gabriel Gurrola on Unsplash.