Freeze Food to Save Money, Time and the Environment

Photo by Kathleen Franklin

I'm a big fan of the modern-day freezer. We don't have a big one, but it's quite alright for the two of us. Freezers actually use less energy the fuller they are, so we try to keep ours pretty stuffed. There's a lot of different kinds of food in our freezer. Not only meat and veggies, but also bread, left-overs and even cheese.

Even though I wouldn't recommend freezing cheese, sometimes the amounts of money you can save by buying big packages, is worth it.

Consider freezing everything you don't see yourself eating within the next week (when it comes to vegetables) or the next two or three days (for meat and left-overs). 
I find that sometimes we even have to freeze half a loaf of bread, because otherwise we wouldn't eat it fast enough. 

Before you put left-overs or big packages of something in the freezer, break it up in usable portions. We buy 2 kg packs of bacon here at the local port, and divide it into little packages of about 6 strips so it's easy to take out whenever we need it. If we need more, we just take out two sets. 

If you're not sure how a certain food will fare under freezing conditions, you can always try a sample first. Just put it in a tiny ziplock back and check the next day. 

Freezing food allows us to make sure we only take out what we eat. It limits the amount of food that we waste because we don't use it up fast enough. I just hate wasting food when so many go hungry.
It also forces us to plan ahead and thus think more clearly about our meals. A great trick to becoming more aware of eating habits and the variation in our diet.

PS. Cheese won't change in flavor if you freeze it, but it will become crumbly when thawed. That being said, if you would grate it and put it on a pizza or in a cheese-sauce, that would work just fine!