An App for Avoiding Waste

The iTunes description of the Green Egg Shopper App of starts like this:

Reduce food waste by never missing ‘Use by’ dates.

Now that’s my kind of app.

The Green Egg app–not to be confused with the smokers–helps avoid food waste in a few, neat ways. First, it allows you to make a handy grocery list and cross items off as you shop. That way, you don’t buy too much at the store, natch. (There are other waste-reduction tips on their site, too.)

More impressive, though, is its handling of expiration dates. The app allows you to set the expiration date on items after you buy them. You can see what’s expiring by perusing the “Use Me Now” list and plan/act accordingly. And it’s all very easily customized–you decide how long before “expiration” a food item goes on the list.

The Green Egg also helps track how much you’ve spent on groceries. It doesn’t look like there’s a way to track the cost of your wasted food, though. That’s too bad because it’d provide some real motivation to cut waste! Oh well, I guess you’ll just have to multiply by 0.25 (as in 25%–what most homes waste).