Food Waste Apps

[Scott 2]

I'm tired of cooking. The easy answer is a meal service like cook unity. Minimal effort, high novelty, but expensive.

I just tried Too Good To Go as another option. A store offers some amount of their waste stream, for around a third of retail prices. Typically food that was for sale that day, but would not be sold the next. Dumpster diving without the trip through the dumpster.

Being vegetarian, I'm limited to bakeries. I couldn't make the same food for the price. The primary "trick" is aligning a pickup with when I'm already out, or making an event of it. Supplies and times are limited.

I think it's a good alternative to buying a treat with groceries. Certainly not health affirming, but a small relief from cooking. It's an easy way to try a new place too.

Were I to eat meat, there's lots of pizza and some Mexican in my area as well. Real meals. A friend in Asia says he uses a similar app called yindii. So apparently it's a global phenomena.


I do wonder:

1. Is this for really for me? I can afford the retail price, even for the meal service. Though currently rocking a 50% of customer retention coupon there.

2. Is it systemically aligned? Checking the app and gambling on selection is fun, as is the "deal". But it's also more time consuming. I can easily buy the same or better.

I'm enjoying the injection of randomness into life.

[jacob]

I'm also tired of cooking (the process of cooking and discovering new recipes does nada for me anymore) and I enjoy occasional variety as well.

My solution to this "conundrum" has been to do what you do but keep it in-house.

This means developing the art and skill of cooking from leftovers. Doing that requires maintaining an ongoing supply of leftovers at hand even if I had to generate them ex nihilo. The way to think about this is in terms of prep-cooks, the people cutting up the ingredients. This way the chef can just swoop in and combine them easily w/o having to deal with the nitty-gritty labor.

An example:
During the same 20 minute period, it's possible to make morning coffee, pressure cook rice, do the dishes by hand, prepare a slowcooker full of beans (I can make better beans in a slowcooker than a pressure cooker), ... and as such fill the fridge with pre-prepared ingredients. Indeed, pre-cutting onions, zucchinis, ... and putting them in boxes in the fridge also fit in that scheme. Bonus points if you just roll burrito ingredients into the next meal.

Then:
Come dinner, it possible to whip up something novel in 10mins because you don't have to do any of the prep-chef grunt work in order to cook dinner.

There are ways, but this is the way!

[7Wannabe5]

I agree that morning prep is key. It's often enough to just have to habit of asking yourself "What's for dinner?" in the morning, and then doing a couple dead-easy things to move it forward. I do this in co-ordination with having a list on the fridge with categories EAT, PREP/COOK, SCAVENGE/SHOP, PLAN/IDEAS. This also necessarily coordinates with reviewing my calendar and possibly packing food to go. In practice, the entire cycle can be completed in just a few minutes.

1) "Start coffee" -> "Tidy Kitchen"-> "What's for dinner?"-> "What am I doing today?" -> "Oh, I'm teaching nursery school, so will eat lunch with the kids as I teach them table manners, but I better pack a big thermos of coffee if I am going to survive the day. Under EAT, I have the leftover tuna salad and tomatoes under COOK, I have sweet potatoes. Okay, dinner will be Tuna Melts, Tomato Salad, and Sweet Potato Fries." Double-check that I have bread and cheese. Get sweet potatoes from bin, rinse, and place on cutting board on counter as visual reminder. Mention dinner plan to mother, so she will know not to eat tuna for her lunch.

Of course, the fact that I have a wide repertoire of dishes I can cook on auto-pilot makes this process faster and easier. I usually only have to recipe check for some proportions when baking and when dealing with an ingredient I rarely encounter. I do eat out sometimes, simply because I enjoy it, and I can easily "afford" dining out and musical theater tickets, etc. within the limit of a 1 Jacob PPP sustainability budget due to only inhabiting approximately 160 square ft. for which I pay $0. Just like I can "afford" to avoid taking cold showers with my preference for a warm whore's bath.

[Jean]

I don't like those apps, they kinda killed dumpster diving , and dumpster divinng was mor fun, simpler, and free.

Regarding food variety, I think it is also key to master a few low prep recipes.

Italians classics like amatriciana or carbonara are good. Once you understands them, you can do a lot of variation. And they take very little time.

@jacob
So your strategy is to make the nitty-gritty labor when your mind wasn't already awaken, because you didn't get you coffee yet ?
I try to fit this when my gf comes back from work and i have to listen to her talking about her day.

[jacob]

So your strategy is to make the nitty-gritty labor when your mind wasn't already awaken, because you didn't get you coffee yet ?
I try to fit this when my gf comes back from work and i have to listen to her talking about her day.

Pretty much. I try to get several things done at the same time while I'm in the kitchen anyway.
This is for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHCty4AkFM8

[loutfard]

Hot meals. I just came back from my weekly pickup. Ready made healthy vegetarian meals, through a local acquaintance at the school around the corner.

Bread. We own a hand-me-down bread machine, but my wife likes the food waste apps better. 2.99€ gets us about a week's bread.

A food waste non-profit is soon to start up its local chapter here. Volunteer driven in cooperation with local shops. These often get less publicity than the for-profit food waste apps. One may exist under the radar near you! @guitarplayer mentioned using something similar where he lives. I'm keeping an eye on these for fruits and vegetables.

[2Birds1Stone]

I tried to use toogoodtogo when living in NY, but it was all bagel shops and bakeries close by.......and we're trying to limit that stuff.

The problem with restaurants on the platform was twofold, most were at least a 15 minute drive each way, and the window for pickup was REALLY late (for us), like 10-11 PM.......and I'm in bed before 9PM, 99% of the time.

Here in Asia, there's a phenomenon of ghost kitchens skewing towards healthy organic high protein, high fiber meals in a "build your own" kind of fashion all with calorie counts and macros. We've found 3 in the city we're staying in and while it's more expensive than cooking yourself (slightly) the variety and convenience is astounding. These same meal prep services in the states would cost 4-5X, so I don't have great advice there other than to avoid.

Before we left the states, I would go through 2-3 rotisserie chickens a week between DW and I. It was very easy to throw on a salad, into some rice and beans, or put on a sandwich. Cooking a bunch of rice for 1-2 days and then having fresh veggies didn't require much thinking or work.

Flash frozen veggie mixes can offer more variety without the chopping, and the cost is often better than buying fresh. Empty bag into bowl/pan, nuke/cook, add to rice.......99% of your work is done.

[Scott 2]

During the same 20 minute period, it's possible to make morning coffee, pressure cook rice, do the dishes by hand, prepare a slowcooker full of beans (I can make better beans in a slowcooker than a pressure cooker), ...

At my preferred pace of living, morning tea takes an hour, sometimes two. My trip to the gym gets 3 hours. I'm slow.

I've done my chores tens of thousands of times. It's not that I cannot cook, batch cook, or even eat the same food daily. I'm simply bored. It feels like waste in my system. We do have a CSA subscription kicking in soon, which might renew some interest.

The brilliance of a meal service, is it also eliminates the shopping, planning and almost all clean up. It's near total delegation AND makes eating interesting again. I'm not giving up my kitchen yet, but there are weeks where it's unnecessary.

tried to use toogoodtogo when living in NY, but it was all bagel shops and bakeries close by.......and we're trying to limit that stuff.

This is the biggest fault I find with the app. Also, my impulse control is poor. I consume novel treats incredibly fast. Getting 3x as much value, might just mean I eat 3 pastries in one day. That's fun, but it's not a win.

There are times, especially with recovery from jaw surgery, where my only priority is calories. I either go hungry after the gym, or suck down a pint of ice cream. It keeps me fueled. That's where the fit has been best. From what I've seen, done occasionally, it doesn't register on my blood work.

The ghost kitchens in Asia sound fantastic. At 50% off, Cook Unity barely fits my current food budget. The vegetarian macros leave something to be desired. I often add a shake or eggs. When I was contracting last year though, the full price service was an obvious win.

Hot meals. I just came back from my weekly pickup. Ready made healthy vegetarian meals, through a local acquaintance at the school around the corner.

This sounds ideal. A personal relationship, with someone who shares my values and fully solves the problem. That is systemically aligned. I'm not prepared for the ongoing resource commitment, hence apps. My current personal food budget is $450/month. That's enough to fund only partial outsourcing. It's a big improvement over solely cooking though, hence exploring my options.

When I don't have a cook unity deal, $450/month is quite a lot. I can reduce effort. Frozen rice, the occasional meal out, etc. But the pattern still demands holding mental space. Sometimes (i.e. Instacart) avoiding the effort fails, taking MORE energy.

Longer term, if I find myself with consistent earned income, I'm most likely to allocate it here. Full delegation. I don't want for material items, but I like help. I think doing so reliably would be ~$1000/month. Without earned income, I'd have to commit my discretionary budget too. That feels unwise.

[guitarplayer]

I have been using Olio but when @j+g came over last year I think I looked it up and people are not using that app in the US. Also when I was in Madrid recently, I only managed to use it about 2 times in two months. It is big in the UK, based on agreements with supermarkets so there is a lot of food coming this way. With the app, food sourcing is a matter of luck and if variety is wide, it is not evenly distributed and hence here-and-now choice is limited. But generally there are deals like 20kg of bananas etc. Something for plant based folk, vegetarians, meat eaters. I managed to optimise food sourcing through it a lot, getting huge variety for an average of less than $75/month per person.

Though this can also get boring. The two months in Madrid brought me back to a typical shopping experience with readiness of all the products I want. Now regular grocery shopping is a treat that makes me appreciate bright sides of capitalism, variety and choice at the same time. Planning ahead what to cook, looking forward to it etc.

When you are getting bored with cooking, I am rediscovering it.

[7Wannabe5]

As we all know, another way (besides adding the random or the novel) to gamify an activity that has become boring is to add constraints. Although, sometimes the reason why adding constraints "works" is that the constraint forces the "novel." For simplest example, challenging yourself to spend $0 on food for 30 days will be immediately challenging and also highly likely to make you happy to return to your former shopping/cooking routine after 30 days. An experiment with being a locavore would likely have similar effect. Or you could combine with philanthropy; cut your budget down to $250/month and donate $200 to international infant nutrition outreach. Or make it more interesting with more food-as-preventative medicine research. Or do a challenge like "Gather all the episodes of a 1960s daily cooking show for housewives in Minneapolis and follow along and cook whatever is shown."

[Scott 2]

I have been using Olio

Checked them out, no traction in my area. Flash food is another. There's a small handful of stores, but low volume of options. It'd only make sense if I was already shopping at the location. These apps seem highly regional.

There's obviously an opportunity in the Summer here, as people are contending with backyard gardens that over produce. We've experienced informal recovery, with neighbors putting boxes of zucchini on their driveways. I imagine much more is available though.

As we all know, another way (besides adding the random or the novel) to gamify an activity that has become boring is to add constraints.

I agree "make work" can create interest. One realization I had during surgery recovery, is I want more intention around my time. I prefer few deep commitments, erasing any disruptions to flow. Even if my flow is simply immersion in a video game. I'd rather go all in on volunteering for 6 months, than skim $250 for charity each month.

Leading a values aligned life, means sacrificing what I don't care about. After relearning to eat over the last 2 months, it's abundantly clear cooking sits here. To a lesser extent, eating. I spent a week feeding myself through a syringe, several more via blender. It took hours every day. All I minded, was hassle. I didn't miss the food.

From a "is the problem solved?" perspective, each of these phases was fine:

[fingeek]

Your original post wasn't super clear to me about what the problem is to solve. Trying to distil your original post down...

I'm tired of cooking.

[Alternative] meal service is Minimal effort, high novelty, but expensive.

I can afford the retail price.

gambling on selection is fun, as is the "deal". also more time consuming. I can easily buy the same or better.

I'm enjoying the injection of randomness into life.

Would I be right in saying that you're not tired as such, more bored and looking for variety but don't have the (energy, willpower, etc) to add your own variety and therefore you're looking externally?

A solution then could be a general combination of simplifying/optimising your own cooking and bringing in external food. There are a lot of test things to cook without real effort (aside from research, admittedly - AI has been good for this type of thing for me personally!). Batch cooking and freezing. Inviting a group of friends around and all bringing something - Or, taking in turns to cook so you only have to cook once a week (the side effect ofc is that higher socialising may not be what you want), etc.

Or maybe you just want to give an app a go out of sheer exploration mode interest.

It's funny how those hidden variables always come into play, and especially in an ERE where everything is so finely balanced that when you turn something up, other things have to turn down. For me, the main issue is often the frictional decisions there!

[sky]

That must have been a difficult time to go through, having to prepare food in liquid form. I can imagine you are very happy to be back to solid food.

One of the solutions to your question would be meal prepping. Cook a large portion of food, as much as will fit into your pots and pans, then divide the meal into single serving containers and freeze them.

Fruit, dried fruit and nuts (trail mix) require no preparation, just chewing, if you are able to do that at this time.

I wish you a speedy recovery.

[Scott 2]

That's a fair assessment. I'd add, preferring to keep the constraint of $450 a month. Doubled, I'd use a meal service. Unlimited, I'd hire a cook. Halved, I'm back to Aldi and batch cooking from ingredients.

I've done the $35 a week on potatoes, beans and onions thing. Even bulk TVP for protein. The skills are there. But, I've also done it

My intent in starting the thread, was a discussion about food waste apps. They're an interesting avenue for threading my needle, and not one I've seen discussed here. From a dollar per calorie perspective, they're even hard to beat.

[Scott 2]

$7 from whole foods, via too good to go. Quite the deal:

[Slevin]

They're an interesting avenue for threading my needle, and not one I've seen discussed here. From a dollar per calorie perspective, they're even hard to beat.

I'm gonna come out and call apps like good to go an anti-pattern / dark pattern... Very few people in the US need to maximize dollars per calorie (and this maximization almost never leaves you in good health). It is fine if you are too thin maybe, but cheap delicious calories are why everyone in this country is overweight! We produce so much good tasting highly processed stuff, you get addicted and it becomes impossible to put it down (for me its hippeas and veggie straws, but everyone's triggers are a lil different). You think I'm gonna be able to put down those double chocolate chip cookies or not eat a whole 800+ calorie chocolate chip muffin? No chance .

And look, we are producing so much of this stuff we have a whole niche economy in selling it an 80-90% markdown!

If the food waste apps actually passed on fruit and veg and real food, I would be all over it, but its all this highly delicious baked goods that should be eaten 1x / week or less being sold in these huge quantities.

[theanimal]

It might just be regional. I believe @guitarplayer sources much of his food through an app and it’s predominantly whole foods/fruit and veggies. We don’t have an app that works here but there is a food waste org from which we get the bulk of our food. We are able to get fish, eggs, veggies, nuts and fruit. As an example, last week we got 200 lbs worth of Yukon gold potatoes for $0.25/lb.

[2Birds1Stone]

I'm gonna come out and call apps like good to go an anti-pattern / dark pattern... Very few people in the US need to maximize dollars per calorie (and this maximization almost never leaves you in good health). It is fine if you are too thin maybe, but cheap delicious calories are why everyone in this country is overweight! We produce so much good tasting highly processed stuff, you get addicted and it becomes impossible to put it down (for me its hippeas and veggie straws, but everyone's triggers are a lil different). You think I'm gonna be able to put down those double chocolate chip cookies or not eat a whole 800+ calorie chocolate chip muffin? No chance .

^ This x10!

The last thing I want is shit like cupcakes, cookies and muffins, even if it's free. That was the bane of my existence in the office world, where everyone would bring that shit in and leave it in the break room after the weekend.....leftovers from parties, birthdays etc.

[Scott 2]

I haven't seen any nutrient dense foods. It's fun though. I'd never gamble $8 on cranberry orange muffins. Turns out they're quite good, much better than chocolate chip. Warmed in the toaster oven, sell by dates become irrelevant.

My strategy for fitting this stuff, is to swap out my other carbs. I'm also moving a lot, while eating twice a day. Breakfast hit 1700 calories - including a muffin and a scone. It was followed by 10k steps wandering the forest. That's an easy day. Tomorrow I'll walk a couple miles, do 30 minutes of zone 2 work, and lift for an hour.

Certainly not optimal nutrition, or a weekly purchase, but I'll probably order again. I'm trying to be more flexible about what I eat. Leave space to appreciate a variety of foods. These bakery offerings are excellent.

[guitarplayer]

It might just be regional. I believe @guitarplayer sources much of his food through an app and it’s predominantly whole foods/fruit and veggies.

Yeah, true. Although we are moving away from it slightly, I think we got pampered in Madrid with food on demand (i.e. go to a shop), whereas with the app it is a bit like hunting and takes some mental space to check the app. That said, two days ago we went shopping and I had been cringing at buying two heads of romaine lettuce for over 1GBP because sure enough, yesterday I got 6 heads of little gem and three iceberg lettuces for free.

Mental load is in looking out for things on the app, plus also resisting getting vegan junk. I am in this very moment looking at Pret A Manger (coffee shop brand which prides itself to be particularly environmentally conscious) 'Avo, olives and Tom's baguette' a mile away from my place. Sure it is vegan. But what is Potassium Glucomate, and some of the other 25+ ingredients? Yesterday there were some 6 treats of this sort from the same cafe.

Arguably an allotment is a food waste app - apply yourself and there's food to eat or else it goes to waste. We went to see an allotment a couple days back and waiting to hear if we get it. If we do, I will maybe use some of the vegan junk to produce compost, thus engaging in food laundering