2020...A New Year, A New Decade and A New Spin on Resolutions

 
three pictures of unorganized freezers

The holidays are behind us and we are starting a new year and a brand new decade! Its time to think New Years Resolution. Here at Diaries of a Dietitian our New Years resolution is freezer clean out.
It’s time to cash in and take advantage of the food you purchased on sale or cooked in big batches to enjoy another time.
This New Years resolution will save us some money by purchasing less groceries over the next few weeks. It will help to reduce the amount of food waste we have. Let’s face it freezers are an amazing appliance but they are not perfect. You can’t freeze food forever, so use it before it goes bad and you end up throwing it out. How long should you freeze food, before it affects the quality?

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/general-food-safety-tips/safe-food-storage.html#a5

list of food in a freezer
 
The first step is to inventory your freezer. Make a list of everything in your freezer and how many you have of each. If you have more than one freezer make a separate list for each freezer (it’s easier to find items if you know where they are).
 
Post or keep the list some place visible, I like old school paper and pen list hung right on the fridge. Use the list when you are meal planning. I try to use as many items out of my freezer each week. Looking at your list some up with meal ideas. Sometimes our meal ideas include just one item from the freezer and other ideas every piece of the meal is out of the freezer. We get quite creative with meal combinations as we get to the end of our freezer clean out.

Set a goal. Can you use the contents of your freezer in a few weeks, or a month or two? It’s not a race but the goal is to work on emptying it. Then we can talk about restocking it.

baked chicken breast on top of a waffle with a garden salad
Frozen chicken breast for Baked Chicken & Waffles with a salad


pork cutlet, pasta and tomato sauce with green beans
Pasta sauce, pork cutlet and green beans all from the freezer


scallops, sauted mushrooms, green peas and pasta with pesto
Peas, pesto and scallops from the freezer

What is your favourite freezer meal?


Shannon RDRegistered Dietitian

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