5 Ways to Prevent your Food from Going Off

I’m terrified of moldy food, and since I live on a budget, I usually can’t afford to waste it. Here are my five tips to prevent food from going off.

Don’t buy too much

I often make the mistake of buying too many varieties in a week and finding that I didn’t get the chance to eat them all. Then, I’d do another shopping and buy even more, so some food are just forever left in the fridge to go mold, until one day I discovered I actually had it (because by that time, I would’ve totally forgotten I even had it in the fridge. So my suggestion is, if you are buying food, don’t try and get every type of food unless you are sure you can use it.

Dry it Out

It’s pretty evident that wet foods will go off easier than dried. So if you have a bunch of tomatoes that are going to go off soon, try and dehydrate them so they become almost like sundried tomatoes. You can do that for almost every fruit and vegetable, so be sure to have a dehydrator handy. Even oven can work for this, or sunlight.

Freeze Them

Say if you found a giant box of bananas for $2, of course you’d want to buy them, right? But if you only have 2 people in the household, you’re going to have major trouble eating it all, unless you plan on having bananas for breakfast,lunch and dinner, and I doubt you’d want that. What I find that keeps the food going the longest is freezing it. You can just peel it, cut it, then freeze it in a large container. Then, you can probably keep it there ten times longer than you would have.

Breads are another great thing to freeze.

Keep them in the Fridge

If you don’t want to freeze them yet, at least put them in the fridge. I know that some people like to keep their fruits out, but I have seen it turn into a fluff of blackness and that’s not a good thing. Fruits like grapes, berries and such rot very easily. Only things like oranges, apples and such are better kept out, but fruits will generally last longer if you keep them in the fridge.

Make just the Right Amount

Unless you want some for leftovers tomorrow. I think it’s an art to be able to make just the right amount for however many people you need to feed. Sometimes, I have this habit of making way too much, and leftover food for 3 days simply doesn’t taste very good, so it ends up rotting or getting wasted. It does take a little measuring, but can be mastered.