We’ve lived in our current house for four years, and some lurking “cabinet castaways” have been there almost as long.

To be fair, our tenure predates my obsession with food waste. And overall, we’ve done pretty well. Yet there’s still plenty of room for improvement in our next home and pantry.

Here’s what I found:

Lack of visibility was a major problem. Who the heck would have guessed that this ugly bag contained perishable tortilla chips brought home from a restaurant? The same goes for this bulk aisle bag, which I learned contained cous cous. I transferred the cous to a glass canister we now use for all of our grains.

Specialty purchases often lead to waste. For instance, this cereal made great Rice Krispie Treats, but nobody wanted it for breakfast. And while I couldn’t resist buying banana sauce, I can’t find an occasion to use it. Not much Filipino fried chicken in my house, unfortunately, and I rarely use ketchup.

Crackers, I’ve learned, are not something we seem to eat. When we do get a box, we don’t seem to use the entire thing. I found an entire sleeve of Saltines buried behind some cans. Had I seen them a year ago, I could have used them as bread crumbs.

That raises a final point: take inventory every so often. Had I done that, I might have enjoyed some toffees instead of cleaning up the their sticky remains.

Besides, it’s good to know what you have, even if it’s not all that useful. Anyone have any suggestions for banana sauce?! (I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out.)

I love leftovers, especially as the next day’s lunch, but many folks don’t. For you non-leftover lovers, ensuring that they’re consumed means planning a leftover meal.

It’s easy, all you have to is: nothing. Don’t buy food for that night or plan another meal. And don’t give in to complaints. Making it work may require some repurposing (i.e. throwing everything into a fritatta) or a little spin. For advice on how to do so, this useful column has an idea–give it a sassy name:

I learned years ago that I could create a complete dinner for my family one night a week using one to two servings of previous meals. Family members might eat different entrees, or we might each have a little of all the entrees. The key is to use every bit of the groceries you purchase. When my children were younger, I would call it “crazy dinner,” and they thought that was fun.

I would suggest “Loco Leftovers,” but some prefer a “smorgasbord.” Go with your gut here. Just remember this talking point: Leftover night rocks because instead of eating one boring ol’ main course, you can have a bit of three.

It’s New Year’s Eve, you’re planning a party and avoiding food waste is the least of your worries. But you care about the environment and want to minimize the amount of food thrown away.

Turns out it doesn’t take all that much effort to do so. This post supplies many practical pointers, both waste-oriented and not.

Provide plates that are about 6-inches in diameter. A full-size dinner plate tends to encourage waste.

Yes! Brian Wansink, of Mindless Eating fame, would be proud of that tip.

It is good to have some appetizers that can sit out all night, like nuts and cheese.

Or something like Peanut M & M’s. Oh wait…

Make or purchase cookies or tartlets for dessert. People don’t want too much sugar when they are drinking.

OK, so minimize the sweets if it’s a drinking crowd. What about the old cocktail party standby–shrimp cocktail?

Although seafood is glamorous, it doesn’t keep well, stinks up the room, is a common food allergy, is a good source of food poisoning, and does not encourage romance. I recommend saving shrimp cocktail and smoked salmon spread for small parties and family get-togethers.

Forget I mentioned it. But what about quantity?

How much should you prepare? I always cook too much. I would rather eat leftovers than run out of something. The general rule is to prepare three of each hors d’ oeuvre per person.

I would argue that it’s OK to run out of food, that all things come to an end…but I realize not everyone concurs. Either way, we can all agree that there’s nothing wrong with leftovers!

Just make sure that the food is changed out every two hours. Throw leftovers out if you have to. Food poisoning is not worth it. Anything in a steamer tray or Crockpot should be OK.

Wait, what happened to ‘I’d rather eat leftovers?!’ Food poisoning is no joke and a very unfun way to begin a new year, but it can be prevented with a few precautions. Laziness doesn’t seem like a great reason to throw away food. It does seem like a great reason to lounge around on New Year’s Day, though.

In my mind, making stock seemed like the final frontier in food efficiency. Kind of like Native Americans using all of the buffalo, only a lot smaller.

The basics are easy enough–toss everything in a pot and let it simmer. Then I turned to this helpful page to answer the questions that remained.

One such question was whether to call it stock or broth. Using the above site as a guide, I boiled it down to this difference: stock takes three hours longer.

Whatever we’re calling it, I threw in some carrot peels, past-its-prime cabbage and the celery parts that I normally compost. About three hours later, the house smelled like chicken soup and I had about 6 cups of broth.

Now, the next time I say I’ve made a homemade soup, I’ll mean all of it. 

I’ve often nagged that it’s best to plan out the week’s meals or at least a few in a row before grocery shopping to avoid excessive purchasing. What happens if you don’t have time to plan ahead?

In that case, have a look in your fridge, including the meat and crisper drawers. Rank items on how soon they’ll become rank. For example, spinach takes priority over eggplant. Then make your meal with the foods likely to go bad sooner.

Sounds simple enough, right? There’s one catch. You can’t just have what you feel like eating. But hey, like Mick said, you can’t always get what you want…

My legal team advises me here that I should stipulate that I’m not a trained food scientist. True, but there are times when use-by dates are just silly. This article from an Irish newspaper points out the virtual impossibility of salt going bad, yet that doesn’t stop salt packets from having a “best before” date.

The same article singles out olive oil and pasta as two other long-lasting items that could go in the “use by the apolalypse” category. The author’s advice makes a lot of sense to me:

If we’re to reduce this monumental pile of waste, we’re going to have to use common sense rather than relying slavishly on some arbitrary date. Use your nose, smell the food. If it has any off odours, bin it — even if it hasn’t reached its ‘best before’ date.

Remember that the ‘best before’ date has enormous margins of safety built in, just to be sure that even improperly stored foods will still be edible. If the food is properly stored as per the label you have a good 10 percent extra time to consume it.

That’s what makes this tidbit from an article in the University of Rhode Island student paper all the more ridiculous.

[Dining Services' Michael] McCullough said that Dining Services keeps leftover food refrigerated for 72 hours. Rhode Island Health Department regulations say that leftover food can be kept for a week, but McCullough said, “We choose to play it safe and go half that time.”

With health department regulations already on the safe side, you could say URI is playing it double safe. Or you could say they’re wasting good food.

From England to Scotland to Northern Ireland to Scotland again and again, food waste is in the news. This is mostly due to the recently released statistic that Britons waste one third of the food they buy.

This factoid comes from WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) that I’m told is a “quango.” Thanks to Wikipedia, I know that that means it’s a QUasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organization.

WRAP’s excellent Love Food, Hate Waste site, which I highlighted Friday but deserves another shout-out (right, Mr. Safire?), has some great ideas for reusing leftovers to avoid waste.

But rather than me bore you with ideas, why not let Sorella Hampton of Britain’s Women’s Institute provide a leftover idea via this video on how to make egg fried rice with leftover veggies. The Women’s Institute hopes to curb waste through a return to post-war values.

Just as shopping can lead you to wasted food, it can also prevent it. Purchasing the right amount of a fresh ingredient for a recipe ensures efficiency, keeps food out of the waste stream and saves you money on unused food. For example, let’s say you’re making a recipe that calls for 10 ounces of mushrooms. Buy just that amount of loose mushrooms instead of those one pound packs. That’s what those scales are for in the produce section.

It’s even easier at the deli, butcher or seafood counters, where they’ll measure it out for you. Unfortunately, purchasing custom amounts doesn’t work with packaged items. That’s why I really don’t like bunched or bagged produce. Don’t even get me started on the three pack of bell peppers.

One way to combat that amount helplessness is to shop somewhere with a bulk goods section where you control just how much you buy. But don’t think you have to buy in ”bulk” just because that’s the name of the section.

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One timely question: is this a waste of champagne? Part of me says yes and part of me is too big of a Red Sox fan to mind (all that much). You know, life’s full of exceptions…