[2021-08-30] Leftovers and snacks
In my post on Reducing food waste, I shared 15 tips to avoid wasting food. To help with the tip eat leftovers, I recently started keeping a list of our leftovers on a piece of scrap paper on the fridge door. By adding an entry on the list as soon as I put a surplus food in the refrigerator, I decrease the chance that the item will get pushed to the back of the fridge and forgotten.
My daughter loves the list. Like me, Melanie hates food waste and sees it as a personal accomplishment when we use up something in its entirety.
My son also welcomes the list. As a grazer—someone who eats throughout the day—he often comes down to the kitchen in search of something to eat, simultaneously opening the fridge door and asking what's for lunch.
Not only does the list help to preempt Shane's perennial question, but it also ensures that we use up our leftovers before they spoil.
Yesterday, Shane requested an additional list: one for snack foods in the fridge, such as fruit and vegetables.
So today, I created a simple template for Fridge Notes to capture both types of refrigerated items: leftovers and snacks.
Controlling your environment
In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear argues that, when it comes to practising good habits, our environment often matters more than our motivation. He writes:
People often choose products not because of what they are, but because of where they are. If I walk into the kitchen and see a plate of cookies on the counter, I'll pick up half a dozen and start eating, even if I hadn't been thinking about them beforehand and didn't necessarily feel hungry.
Clear recommends that we design our environment for success, providing this example:
I used to buy apples from the store, put them in the crisper in the bottom of the refrigerator, and forget all about them. By the time I remembered, the apples would have gone bad. I never saw them, so I never ate them.
Eventually, I took my own advice and redesigned my environment. I bought a large display bowl and placed it in the middle of the kitchen counter. The next time I bought apples, that was where they went—out in the open when I could see them. Almost like magic, I began eating a few apples each day simply because they were obvious rather than out of sight.
Shane's snack list is a proxy for the fruit bowl on the counter, but with the bonus that fruits that are best kept chilled remain refrigerated.
Our lists are good for more than avoiding food waste. They're also useful for promoting healthy eating habits and for ensuring that the effort that goes into preparing foods—such as cut-up watermelon and hulled strawberries—isn't all for naught.
