First aid for food waste: learn meal prepping! Did you know that an average Dutch person throws away 34 kilos of food a year? That could be a lot less if you have a smart meal prepper becomes. A good habit that can also save you a lot of money. We would like to show you how to do this conveniently.
Food waste is a big problem
In collaboration with Mepal
So figures from Milieu Centraal show that quite a lot is wasted in our kitchens: 34 kilos of food and 45 litres of drink per person per year. Yeesh! When you throw food away, you are literally throwing money away. But what about all the effort that went into producing the food and getting it here? Oy, not so sustainable in other words. So getting started with food waste makes sense to do for several reasons. And the nice thing is: once you start, it becomes a bit addictive. An easy first step is to buy more discounted items and save food, but combining your produce smarter at home is just as important. Let's take a look at that. Can we have a meal prepper release in you?
EHBM: First Aid for Meal Prepping
A first step is to learn to think better ahead when making your shopping list. What do you still have in the fridge and what do you need to buy to make simple dishes from it? What's even better is that you can combine the things you buy with each other. For example, did you know that vegetables that come from the same region are often delicious to combine? Now you understand why tomatoes, aubergine and courgette are such a tasty combo, but also why our winter vegetables go so well together.
Before you go shopping, make a list! Your mother was right: this will prevent you from buying nonsensical or too tasty things. Moreover, (online) shopping with a list goes a lot faster than offhand. We use a handy free app To Do from Microsoft. It lets you share lists with each other and you never have to exchange shopping wishes. It's all on that shared list.
Thinking ahead does a real meal prepper when doing the shopping, but also when cooking. If you are busy during the week, try to make a meal as early as the weekend and then store it in the fridge or freezer. If you work at home, you'll probably have a break in the afternoon to build a casserole that you can put back in the oven later. These are all forms of meal prepping that prevent food waste. And what you don't eat, you simply freeze. This way, you don't waste food and nutrients are better preserved by freezing.
Looking for the right storage boxes
At meal prepping belong also good storage boxes. A hodgepodge of boxes is far from ideal. Different sizes mean you can't divide up the freezer properly and valuable space remains unused. That freezer is quite an energy guzzler, so it is important to use it as efficiently as possible. Moreover, many storage boxes are unfortunately not transparent, which means you might spend too much time in front of the freezer looking for the right meal. And oef, a freezer left open for a long time costs lol.... In short, good storage boxes are indispensable in the kitchen of a true meal prepper.
Getting started with an elaborate meal prep: vegan green curry. Prepared over the weekend to eat during the week.
But a good storage box is also one without endocrine disruptors. It has since become known that some products, including, therefore, storage boxes, may contain Bisphenol A (BPA for short). That is certainly not a pretty story. Especially if you still have old boxes and especially if you regularly heat them in the microwave, it is wise to look for replacements. Since we had a motley collection of storage boxes and we had no idea what brand and material they were made of, we decided to replace the entire collection.
Storage boxes from Mepal: prep it, keep it, eat it
Through blogger and green mum Kari van de Heide, I ended up with Mepal. She gave this as a sustainable tip and so I then purchased a couple of boxes. We started with some storage boxes from Mepal's Cirqula line. We liked this so much that we soon replaced everything and in the meantime thegreenlist.nl also became a proud ambassador of this brand and we have many more Mepal products such as drinking cups, bread bins and handy oven dishes. Back to the storage boxes: they are easy to stack, so you can divide up the fridge and freezer well, and thanks to the handy lid with see-through window, you can quickly see what you have stored. So no more fumbling for an open freezer.
Why we are fans of Mepal's storage units
So our choice fell on Mepal's rectangular Cirqula multi bowls and here's why:
- Stackable, allowing you to divide fridge and freezer efficiently.
- With see-through window in lid so you can quickly see what's inside.
- Suitable for fridge, freezer, microwave and dishwasher.
- Perfect closure and leakproof.
- Endlessly reusable, because primal strength.
- Primarily Dutch brand with sustainable values in operations and production (BPA-free, so no hormone disruptors).
Do you also want to get started with meal prepping and less food waste? Check out Mepal's handy Cirqula collection. Trust me, this is going to make you very happy as meal prepper.
More sustainable kitchen tips from thegreenlist.nl
- Cheap shopping and saving food at the same time? Then check out this review on Foodello.
- This is how you save the best groceries through Too Good To Go. We'll teach you!
- More handy kitchen gadgets? Check out a handy list here.
- Does that freezer need cleaning? Here we explain how to do this quickly and in an environmentally friendly way.
Sources: Milieu Centraal. Photo credits: thegreenlist.nl.
