Eating well is essential, but feeding your family properly, without wasting and saving money, can quickly become a headache. With young children and students away for the week, it’s quite an art to stock up on groceries without spending too much, and to prepare a balanced weekly menu with no waste! Rest assured, there are techniques to help you organize your diet optimally. These methods allow us to improve the way we consume, while at the same time indulging ourselves and thinking about our wallets. Do you want to become ananti-gaspi ace? Discover our economical solutions for the whole family!
Organizing your cupboards and fridge: a solution that students can also adopt
Tidy up your fridge to avoid food waste
The refrigerator plays a vital role in the success of an anti-gaspi routine. It’s often in demand, its door is regularly opened and there’s a lot of movement in this little refrigerated space!
🕵️♂️ To optimize efficiency, here are a few basic rules to follow to store your fridge properly and avoid food waste:
- Define fridge storage areas and respect them (for example, one floor for dairy products, another for meats, etc.);
- respect the cold chain (avoid taking a product out of the fridge for too long);
- remove packaging from industrial products, which are often over-packaged;
- protect fragile foods and open products (use reusable boxes, for example);
- check expiration dates regularly and put products with short expiry dates at the front of the line so that they can be eaten first;
- keep your fridge clean and tidy.
Tidy up your cupboards and protect your food to reduce waste
To avoid wasting food, organization is key. Your closets also need a fine-tooth comb! You’ll see things more clearly, and it’ll be much easier to manage your day-to-day cooking and shopping.
Our advice:
- Empty cupboards;
- sort all food according to category and best-before date;
- clean furniture as you go (anything containing food must be cleaned and emptied regularly);
- Organize food supplies by family, leaving short dates in front, and placing useful cooking items near the oven.
There are no miracle recipes for saving money, but it’s often a question of rethinking the way you operate. Optimization and anticipation will always save you time, avoid waste and therefore save you money.
💡 To boost your approach, use an anti-gaspi app! She can help you find the best opportunities to help combat food waste, use your stockpiled food to make recipes without spending, or organize yourself to achieve your goal and save money.
Inflation affects every family, and these 2.0 tools, which can be downloaded onto a smartphone or tablet, are practical and always at hand. Don’t hesitate to try them out!
Shopping efficiently and economically: menus, lists and inventories on the agenda
Take stock of your food reserves
With a well-stocked fridge and organized cupboards, you’ll find it easier to carry out inventories. It’s not a question of calling in an accountant or filling in lengthy Excel files, but of meticulously tracking your stock of foodstuffs so you know where you stand.
You’ll see that we often have much more to eat than we think. Some foods can remain in their warm place in the drawer for a very long time, at the risk of never being used. That’s why it’s important to be aware of the merchandise available at home before preparing the week’s menu and going shopping.
Create weekly menus for the whole family
Planning your menus in advance for the month or the week will enable you to know exactly what you need to buy in groceries. What’s more, you’ll be able to think about how to balance your meals and vary your ideas for even more fun!
You can also think about cooking with seasonal produce and prioritize quality over quantity. Thanks to these menus, you’ll be able to anticipate and cook food in advance when possible, for example.
Shopping with a detailed list
Following a shopping list to the letter isn’t always easy, but with an anti-gaspi logic in mind, it’s child’s play. Your cupboards and fridge will be tidy, you’ll know exactly what you have in stock and your menus will be pre-established. All you have to do is buy the bare essentials to fill the gaps in your reserves, and you’re done.
Drive-through or anti-gaspi store solutions can help, and are much appreciated by families who have taken the plunge and are working with these revolutionary methods!
Prepare meals in advance: the batch cooking trend
Have you heard of batch cooking? This anti-gaspi solution consists of preparing a maximum number of meals at once. The idea is to cook almost the whole week’s menu in one go. This not only saves considerable amounts in electricity and gas consumption, but is also a great time-saver and an important anti-waste plan.
If you have students to look after and they’re going away for the week, this will be a good opportunity for them to leave with a stock of ready-to-heat meals. That way, they won’t have to buy industrial ready-made meals, which are often expensive and of lower quality than the good stuff cooked by mom or dad!
Batch cooking helps you eat better, save time and money, and avoid waste thanks to calculated dosing and the ability to freeze food as needed.
There are many ways to combat food waste, while eating well and reducing your shopping budget. Awareness is the first step. By analyzing the results of your actions, you’ll be able to measure the impact of these new consumption and food management habits. The benefits will weigh in the balance, and those who have tried them out have approved!