Leftovers

I used to cook for my then teenage son, he ws devastated to discover instead of stew was plums !!!

I have a fridge-freezer, not a big chest (well, that too!) I too would love one that's two-thirds freezer. I don't label or date anything and have often mistaken spinach for basil. There isn't room for anything to get forgotten, nothing's in there more than about six months, which I'm sure doesn't matter. No meat by the way except dog's and I freeze a week's meals at a time for her.

It is travelsafar, I agree. To be honest I watched the two latest episodes, as i had never come across it before, and I found it quite horrifying, to be honest. I sometimes have things which unfortunately, get stuffed to the back of the fridge and forgotten until i clean out the fridge a week later. It then, obviously, ends up in the rubbish, but it pains me, and i do try to avoid it.
What i see, and not just from that programme, but from younger friends in the UK, is that few people actually cook properly. I have many friends in their thirties with young children, and i can think of one family where they cook 90 percent of their meals from scratch. the vast majority use a lot of convenience foods, dont sit down to a meal together, and eat takeaways regularly.
What i find most ironic is the amount of them who spend a fortune on refurbishing their kitchens, and they never really use them!

I can not watch that program lisalou it makes me so angry at people's wastefulness!!! Especially when you hear so much about food banks being needed and children in poverty and being malnourished in this day and age in the UK, scandalous!!!!!

We have the large freezer and I have to confess we do end up with mystery bags, having said that, our dogs often get "quelle surprise" cooked up for them - perfect solution to mystery bags. Neither I, nor the dogs, have any problem with dealing with left overs - anything that I don't give them, gets eaten by 18 year old son!
I have been watching the programme "Eat well for less" and am quite horrified by the quantity of precooked/packaged meals and take aways the British (I suspect mainly young) have on a regular basis!

Back in the day, I had a huge chest freezer that I ran as efficiently as military operations! Grew my own veg and froze it, bagged it and labelled it. Same with buying meat in bulk from a local farm shop. My freezer was a thing of beauty! But I've downsized considerably now; have no room for anything other than a small fridge/freezer and don't have a large family to feed everyday. Buying stuff in smaller quantities and, as said by travels, shop are open for longer now and you can stock up 24/7 if needed or wanted. I hate waste, as most of us do, so I buy little and often.

My buying/cooking/freezing is more or less in balance - easy to cater for myself plus GCs at weekend.
However I'd love to find a fridge freezer with 60% freezer and 40% fridge as it would suit me far better.
I've spotted a couple online but not an integrated one. Am seriously thinking of removing those 'decor' doors if I can find the ideal appliance.
Chucking food in the bin seems quite acceptable
in this family to everyone but me. Can't understand why my DD's dogs don't get leftovers!

I guess it partly depends where you live - we have only just moved to a village 15 minutes from the shops - prior to that we were in a village that was 30+ minutes from the shops, and with only a tiny shop in the next village (not much in the way of fresh food there).

So getting stuff for the freezer was inevitable; but I do agree how difficult it is to rotate the contents by date.

I hate food being wasted; but I seem to achieve that without all this pre-prep and freezing of whole meals - the remains of one meal become our meal for the next day.

I try to buy just what i think we need in terms of fresh food.

To be honest, shops are open 24 hours if you run out and are desperate for something.

I dont see the need to buy huge ammounts of fresh items only to put in the freezer or in the bin!!!

Have you got a very big freezer wm? I only have a small one now, after selling my large one which seemed to hold a lot of stuff I never got round to using. I just wasn't disciplined enough to label and rotate the packages hidden in its depths. But I do admire those who do that!