How to Fight Household Food Waste? Join our Eat Down Your Pantry Challenge!

[Editor’s Note:] Welcome to our Eat Down Your Pantry Challenge — a simple, achievable 4-week initiative to reduce waste and your foodprint — which we’re producing in partnership with April McGreger of Preserving the South. Follow along as April shows us how to shop our pantry, organize what we find and make delicious meals from what we already have on hand. By signing up for the challenge, we’ll send you 4 weekly emails with April’s creative tips, prompts and strategies — and you will also get a 1-month subscription to her Preserving the South Substack. Let’s dig in! [/Note]

Have you ever stood in front of a packed refrigerator or pantry and yet still felt like there was nothing to eat in the house? Is your freezer ever so full and disorganized that you just avoid it completely? Have you ever pulled a bag of once-spectacular summer peaches from the freezer only to realize you forgot about them so long they’d gotten freezer burn?

Why should you participate?

Managing food waste at home by inventorying and fully utilizing pantry, fridge and freezer staples not only saves money and reduces waste but also fosters creativity, resourcefulness and delicious simplicity in cooking.

Here are just a few of the positive environmental impacts of a good freezer + pantry drawdown.

Financial benefits

• “Shopping the shelf” translates to less money spent at the market. These savings are especially welcome post-holidays, when many of us feel financially stretched.
• Last year, in the first month of my challenge, I spent less than $200 for my family of three’s groceries for the entire month! We were able to save more than $1,500 in eight weeks and put that money toward our summer vacation!

Practical benefits

• Cleaning out our pantry, fridge and freezer creates space for fresh, seasonal ingredients to be stored at their peak ripeness.
• It is a joy to work in a decluttered and organized kitchen where everything has a place and purpose.
• We waste less when we can fully see what we have. Chaos breeds waste.

Mental and creative benefits

• These are the most surprising rewards for me! Reduced shopping trips free up time to cook from scratch, learn a new dish and experiment with techniques.
• Resourcefulness and simplicity spur creativity. When our leftover holiday ham started to feel like a burden, I got creative and made croquetas de jamon (Spanish ham croquettes). They were so fantastic we forgot we were eating ham again, and I’ve since used the same technique with leftover chicken as well.
• Maybe I just crave boundaries like a 2-year-old, but there is something VERY calming when our dinner choices are limited. The paradox of choice is real!

Family and communal benefits

• During our pantry drawdown, we spent more time in the kitchen as a family — I got my son involved rolling out homemade pita breads and pasta to use up all the extra flour we found. This slower approach to cooking also meant I took time to make long-cooked grits, which allowed me to share an important cultural food with my family. And it meant more time just hanging out in the kitchen brainstorming and cooking, and less time running back and forth to the market, picking up takeout, etc.

Let’s get started

Sign up for the 4-week challenge at the form below and receive a weekly email where I will:

• Walk you through exactly what I’m doing, how I’m meal planning and what adventures unfold.
• Share my best organizational tips to set you up for an easier-to-manage inventory going forward.
• Offer cooking tips and meal inspiration as I go.
• Invite you to join the conversation and ask questions over on my Substack, Preserving the South (all challenge participants will receive a free one-month subscription).

Photo courtesy of Samarra Khaja for FoodPrint.