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The GaysianHillary Crosley Coker
7/20/15 9:59am
Here’s a list of things my friends have found after move-out day in my old college.

A jar full of $43.97 worth of change

A bottle of Tequila, limes and salt,

Six pairs of boots

30 cans of vegetables

10 pound sack of rice

Couch pillows and bedding

Six dozen eggs, two bags of frozen chicken, 18 oreo ice cream sandwiches.

3 gallons of detergent, sponges, an end table, a mirror.

Bacardi and a plate set, with matching silverware.

Three 12-packs of beer and two pounds of broccoli.

Ralph Lauren clothing, sandals, vodka.

A large wooden stool and a vanity mirror.

And this was found in student apartments and housing, the day people moved out.
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  mollymlf05The Gaysian
  7/20/15 10:07am
  Sounds like the makings of a party!
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  The Gaysianmollymlf05
  7/20/15 10:08am
  It sounds like the makings of a GREAT party.
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*Malice in Blunderland*Hillary Crosley Coker
7/20/15 12:26pm
OK. I’m gonna get real here.

I grew up broke as fuck. My ma divorced my crack head dad when my sister and I were real young and raised us by herself. She was a Cuban immigrant with no education. She worked three jobs. We were on welfare. The kids threw monopoly money at me at school. We ate ramen or chef boy ardee every night. It sucked. Eventually my ma remarried, was able to finish school, and things were OK from there on. Although we were still solidly lower middle-class, we lived in a city primarily populated by wealthy doctors. We were always the odd ones out.

When I was sixteen I got a job working at a fucking Panera bread. I got my first real taste of just how much food rich white people throw out. Its ridiculous you guys. And it pissed me off so much. People wouldn’t eat their food that they ordered! I would ask them if something was wrong with their meal. They would say, no I’m just not that hungry.

NO IM JUST NOT THAT HUNGRY.

?????!!!????????!!!!!!???!

THEN WHY DID YOU ORDER THIS MUCH FOOD?!

The real kicker is when I would ask if they wanted a box and they would say no. You know what happens to that food? I have to throw it out. There would be sides of apples, unopened bags of chips. I would ask the manager if I could keep them and they told me no it was a health code violation. I had to throw them all out. UNOPENED BAGS OF CHIPS AND WHOLE APPLES. JUST IN THE FUCKING TRASH. That would fed 5 year old me for two days you guys.

There was nothing more disheartening for me than having to throw out rich peoples food for them. That was essentially my job. Throwing out food, then going to the bathroom to cry and have ramen flashbacks. Dont even get me started on the bags and bags and bags of uneaten bread and other food we had to throw out every night because “we make are food fresh every day!” God forbid that some WASPy midwestern house wife eat day old bread. I quit after two months.

Fuck that place. Fuck all American restaurants and their extreme waste. And fuck all you sick fucks who go out to eat when you’re not hungry and then won’t box your food to take home for late because “you only like it FRESH.”
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  miss_chevious*Malice in Blunderland*
  7/20/15 1:57pm
  I used to work at a McDonald’s and we developed an informal arrangement with a couple of people who were clearly down on their luck where they would come in a little bit before we closed and we would give them the food out of the expired bin. Our manager didn’t like it, but he looked the other way. And that was just crappy McDonald’s food, not apples!
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  VonQueso*Malice in Blunderland*
  7/20/15 2:11pm
  This is the exact rant I would have come here to post. You and I have similar backgrounds and similar experiences working in food. All of this. So. Much. This.
  
  I have a real problem with strawberries. They were such a rare treat as a child that now when I buy them as an adult, I hoard them, wanting the happy to last, until some of them mold.
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thenewmrssalazarHillary Crosley Coker
7/20/15 9:47am
I grew up pretty broke and use those sell by dates as a guideline. Mostly I do a “sniff” test or poke around at the food and observe the texture. My husband grew up upper middle class. He acts like the sell by date is the law. Also anyone else grow up just cutting mold off cheese instead of throwing the whole piece away? Just me? *hangs head in shame*.
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  benjaminalloverthenewmrssalazar
  7/20/15 9:51am
  Also anyone else grow up just cutting mold off cheese instead of throwing the whole piece away?
  
  Cut it off? That’s “free penicillin” in my household. Waster!
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  Borealisthenewmrssalazar
  7/20/15 10:02am
  I was raised to cute the mold off cheese! High five! And I was solidly middle class. Cheese IS mold, by and large.
  
  I will say I have witnessed some gross things though. My grandfather (British) went through WII in England. Though upper middle class, it definitely coloured him for life. He would salvage even the most rotten food. I once watched him microwave brown limes in water to salvage the juice rather than just compost then.
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EldritchHillary Crosley Coker
7/20/15 9:36am
I know sell by dates are mostly suggestions on stuff that isn’t dairy or meat but I just mentally can’t get over them. I found a sealed bag of almonds in my desk last week that was expired by two weeks and couldn’t bring myself to eat them. I am part of the problem. *hangs head*
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  iseedeaddaleksEldritch
  7/20/15 9:41am
  For me it depends on the product. I go by the date for dairy and I usually test eggs if they are past the date by putting them in a glass of water (if they float, they are bad). For pretty much everything else I go by look/smell, and sealed things (bags/cans) can go 6mo-1 year past the date.
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  SpringSprungEldritch
  7/20/15 9:44am
  We have the opposite problem here at work. For some reason, a lot of the staff seems to think refrigerating food makes it immortal.
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SillyMe8Hillary Crosley Coker
7/20/15 9:41am
I say stop serving such massive portions. Seriously, so many restaurants serve huge plates of food that could reasonably feed a family of four. Or maybe three. More than one person, anyway. So the stuff doesn’t get eaten (or it shouldn’t) and goes into the bin.
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  benjaminalloverSillyMe8
  7/20/15 9:49am
  My family were pretty shocked and delighted at the cheap, ginormous portions of food in American restaurants when we visited as kids. At Denny’s they brought my sister a free platter of pancakes (because she was under 5 I guess?) and we just laughed and laughed at the size of the plate. There was what appeared to be an ice cream scoop of butter on the top! It was like a cartoon.
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  AmbulatorySillyMe8
  7/20/15 9:51am
  But that is not the worst of the problem. Working at Starbucks and throwing away all the breakfast sandwiches and cold case food every other day made me sick to my stomach. We gave away as much as we could, but some nights it was BAD. Imagine how many locations, and that every foodservice place does that shit. Horrible. And you cant donate it, oh noooo.
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XofHillary Crosley Coker
7/20/15 9:58am
It’s the bulk / mega store mentality that contributes to this as well. I like going to market every couple of days and making a few meals with what I bring home. I realize of course that this isn’t ideal for people who like to load up like the apocalypse is nigh.
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  ThirdAmendmentManXof
  7/20/15 10:05am
  I do this because I have a grocery store right next to my house and I don’t have kids. I couldn’t imagine shopping like that with kids.
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  prollynotXof
  7/20/15 10:05am
  Or people who live far away from a grocery store. It’s a city habit to be able to run for groceries every few days. However, there are ways to stock up and still not waste, so it’s no excuse for country folk either, just takes a different mindset.
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alconleighHillary Crosley Coker
7/20/15 9:40am
How many days over the expiry date can boneless skinless chicken breasts be before it becomes a listeria issue

Asking for a friend

Also hi John Oliver you’re the most wonderful
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  SwashFuckleralconleigh
  7/20/15 9:44am
  If it smells fine, it is fine.
  
  It’s an early draft of my motto on this issue. Needs a bit of work, I accept.
  
  But tell your friend to sniff the chicken.
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  Bekabyalconleigh
  7/20/15 9:54am
  Is it frozen or thawed? Officially, fresh chicken is good in the refrigerator for 2 - 3 days while frozen chicken pieces are good for up to six months (frozen whole chickens are okay up to a year).
  
  However. Listeria, like Salmonella, isn’t related to the time spent thawed. It’s either there or it’s not, it doesn’t just occur in a sealed package. As long as you thoroughly cook the chicken and take care not to cross contaminate your tools/kitchen/other ingredients, it shouldn’t matter if there is listeria bacteria present because you’ll kill it in the cooking process.
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Alice in The North PoleHillary Crosley Coker
7/20/15 10:35am
Reducing my food waste is a goal that I set for myself this year. I had to adjust to only shopping for one, post-divorce, and wasn’t doing a great job of using things up before they went bad. It was really sickening once I started to pay close attention to everything I was throwing away. Extrapolating my own food waste to a nationwide/worldwide scale is pretty horrifying.
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  lawloverAlice in The North Pole
  7/20/15 10:48am
  Shopping for one is HARD. I lived by myself in a food desert for several years and it was hard to not waste food. I lived far enough from a grocery store that I had to really stock up when I shopped, but then things would go bad. Eventually I just gave up on buying leafy greens. They went bad before I could eat them, every time. Ditto grapes.
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  AlexandrineAlice in The North Pole
  7/20/15 11:48am
  The freezer is definitely your friend.
  
  Potatoes/potato dishes don’t keep that well, generally (the texture can get icky), and when I freeze sliced cucumbers, I basically just do that to use for home spa purposes (although I could probably through them into smoothies, too...maybe they’d make acceptable soup if I used them soon after freezing). A lot of other things will keep really well, though—not great for salads, but good for mixing with yogurt, curries, baked desserts, soups, etc. (If I freeze leafy greens, it’s for smoothies, and I try to use them quickly, although I think they could also work in curries.)
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PlumberZekeHillary Crosley Coker
7/20/15 9:43am
I think my casual disregard for expiration dates and my unwavering belief that as long as it doesn’t smell bad it’s fine has made my immune system a force to be reckoned with.
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ChipsnQueso4evaHillary Crosley Coker
7/20/15 9:47am
my boyfriend and I argue over sell-by dates on the regular; I’m much more relaxed and see it as a “suggestion”, he wants to toss something that expired the day before. I usually win. We love JO and watch the show regularly, so I felt very vindicated last night :)

What do I throw out the most? Bread. Shit goes moldy after like 2 days! I hate buying bread that’s overly processed, but the good stuff doesn’t last and there’s just two of us. So, like, if I buy hot dog buns, we’ll eat 4/8 in two days... then the other 4 have mold on them by day 3. Any suggestions?
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  kittydelite2ChipsnQueso4eva
  7/20/15 9:51am
  Freeze the bread!
  
  Keeps for ages, thaws quickly and good as new.
  
  I keep a sliced loaf in the freezer and take out a slice at a time as needed- just thaw in the toaster.
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  monkeyjeebusChipsnQueso4eva
  7/20/15 10:03am
  Or just keep it in the fridge.
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