{"id":5976,"date":"2018-12-26T12:49:24","date_gmt":"2018-12-26T17:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eatrightpa.org\/?p=5976"},"modified":"2021-10-30T03:37:44","modified_gmt":"2021-10-30T03:37:44","slug":"food-waste-keeping-a-clean-and-organized-pantry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/2018\/12\/26\/food-waste-keeping-a-clean-and-organized-pantry\/","title":{"rendered":"Food Waste: Keeping a Clean and Organized Pantry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/rosanne.rustnutrition\/\">Rosanne Rust, MS, RDN, LDN <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While I don\u2019t love the vaguely defined term \u201cclean eating\u201d, I do love a clean kitchen. Many of you may find a lot of leftover goodies in your chaotic kitchen this month, and soon you\u2019ll be anxious to get back to normal eating. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now is a great time to reorganize your kitchen. Start with the refrigerator, and then move on to the pantry and cabinets. Finally, clean the whole room. <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Literally empty the refrigerator, one shelf at a time, then doors. Wipe shelves down with a kitchen disinfectant spray, working from top to bottom, including doors. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sort the food you removed from the refrigerator, check dates, determine if it should go back in or not (or on another shelf). Continue this process until you\u2019ve emptied everything out, checked, sorted, and put back. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Move open items to the front. If there\u2019s only a few tablespoons left in a jar, it may be worth pitching now. Or you can figure out a way to work it into a recipe. Take note of any cheese or cream cheese that\u2019s expiring and plan a meal around it before expiration. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Keep in mind that \u201csell-by\u201d doesn\u2019t mean \u201cuse by\u201d. According to Registered dietitian Judy Barbe, author of Your 6-Week Guide to LiveBest, Simple Solutions to Fresh Food &amp; Well-Being\u201c, \u201cThe sell-by date is a suggested date for the grocer to sell food with ample time left to enjoy it. With milk that may be up to 7-10 days or even more depending on how cold you keep it. I often see women complain that their husbands insist they throw out milk on the sell-by date.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Waste Not Want Not <\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Judy also has some great tips for reducing food waste at home, and here are some of mine: <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do you have a leftover veggie tray or the bag of broccoli you never got around to cooking? Now is a great time to use up those leftover veggies and whip up a stir fry or a vegetable soup. This <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">soup recipe <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">makes a vegetable puree for the soup base. Or use them up in a healthy veggie omelet. Omelets make a great quick dinner. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Have leftover shrimp cocktail? Chop it and make our <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">salsa <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">for the next football game. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Chop leftover ham or roasts into bitesize pieces and freeze. This can then be pulled out of the freezer for a <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">quick <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">dinner, stew, or fajitas. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Did you get too many candy gifts or have leftover cookies? Take unopened packages to your local food bank or freeze them for a future gathering. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you overbought canned goods or other pantry ingredients, consider donating them to your food bank or church. I\u2019ve often kept items in the pantry, and after all of the cooking over the holidays, they end up staying there too long. Make the donation now while the \u201cbest buy\u201d date is still good. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you have leftover chips or other tempting junk food, send it into your child\u2019s school for the teacher lounge, or send it back with your college student to share with friends.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Rosanne is owner of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rustnutrition.com\">Rust Nutrition Services<\/a>. She began freelance writing in 1994, created her virtual nutrition practice in 2000, now bringing 30 years of experience to what she does. As a nutrition communications consultant, Rosanne translates nutrition data into well-reasoned dietary advice so people can enjoy eating for good health. Visit her <a href=\"http:\/\/chewthefacts.com\/books\/\">blog<\/a> for more information about her books, including DASH Diet For Dummies\u00ae.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Rosanne Rust, MS, RDN, LDN While I don\u2019t love the vaguely defined term \u201cclean eating\u201d, I do love a clean kitchen. Many of you may find a lot of leftover goodies in your chaotic kitchen this month, and soon you\u2019ll be anxious to get back to normal eating. Now is a great time to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":6082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103,96],"tags":[161,29,162,163,164],"class_list":["post-5976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-103","category-december-2","tag-clean-eating","tag-cooking","tag-food-waste","tag-kitchen","tag-leftovers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5976"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10471,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5976\/revisions\/10471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}