I read a startling statistic recently: The average household throws out about $640 worth of food each year. As of July, there were about 117 million households in the U.S. That works out to nearly $75 billion in wasted food. That's just in the United States, and in just one year.
That's not good.
where it’s @
EatBy requires an Android or iOS mobile device and free registration within the app. The app is free, but costs $1.99 to remove the ads. The MasterCook app is free for Android or iOS with up to 25 recipes. To add more recipes, an annual subscription is required of $9.99 a year (discounted with added years). Registration at mastercook.com is required. More information on EatBy is available at eatbyapp.com. More information on MasterCook is available at mastercook.com.
I admit, I've been disappointed more than once at having to throw out food that had gone bad before I could eat it, particularly those slightly pricey fresh foods, such as vegetables and fruits.
Recently, I found one app designed to help reduce household food waste and another to provide ideas on what to do with the food.
The first app is called EatBy. The app is designed to keep track of the sell-by or use-by dates on food and to alert the user when the food needs to be eaten before it goes bad.
The food must be added to a list that is displayed on the main screen. You can add just about anything, from fresh foods to those condiments that you probably bought two presidents back. Yes, the app will even alert you when it's time to ditch those.
The EatBy app includes a barcode scanner so you can add the foods more quickly. You scan the code, it finds the food in its database and it pops up the name so all you have to do is input the sell-by or use-by date -- at least, that's the idea.
Apparently, there aren't many foods in the EatBy database, if any. Nothing I scanned popped up, even common products such as Gold Medal flour, Heinz Ketchup or Sprite. I tried several barcodes with no success.
Luckily, you can simply add items manually. That means it will take a lot more time to set it up initially. It's a good excuse to clean out the fridge, though. Once that job is done, it's a lot easier to maintain the list by adding groceries when they are purchased.
The first step is to tap the plus in the top right. Then you start typing the name of the food in the search bar and hit return to scroll through the list of matches that pops up. Tap the food, then input the sell-by or use-by date. Then hit save, and the EatBy app saves the food in a chronological list on the main screen.
The list is very handy. It shows the dates of the foods close to expiration in yellow or red if it's expiring. The name of the food is listed in the second column, and the third column shows the symbol for the food's location, be it the refrigerator, the freezer, stored sealed in the kitchen or already opened.
EatBy will send alerts to the phone when food is about to expire. The idea is to let you know it's time to prepare the food before it goes bad and save on wasted food. I really like this feature. There has been more than one occasion in which I forgot about something I bought when it ended up behind something else in the refrigerator. The alerts allowed me to remember the vegetables I needed to eat soon. It actually helps with menu planning for the week.
EatBy also pops up random tips when it's started up. I admit, I didn't know you shouldn't wash chicken before I saw it on this app. Now I know it's a no-no because the splashed water drops spread nasty germs all over nearby surfaces, including clothes and skin. That's a little scary.
EatBy will take a long time to set up initially, especially given the scanner option doesn't work well. Once it is set up, however, it does provide some good services. The food alerts are great, and the tips are actually very useful. I like the idea behind it, and I like what it can do. Once they get that scanner up to speed, it will be perfect.
The second app is an add-on to an old favorite personal computer program of mine, MasterCook. The MasterCook app essentially is an add-on to the Master Cook software. It is available for Android and iPhone and works with an online MasterCook subscription.
The app allows you to type in your own recipes and organize them into separate cookbooks. The app works with the online account, so when recipes are found on the website and added to the My Recipes portion of the online account, they automatically show up under My Recipes in the app.
The app has quick features that I love. With one touch, you can add the ingredients from a recipe to a shopping list. You also can change the portions in a recipe to make the dish for more or fewer people.
The app is great for organization and to transfer recipes found on the web to a mobile phone. But it doesn't do much else. Still, it works well, and it's a good companion to the EatBy app. I was able to find some great eggplant recipes before my baby eggplant went bad.
Combined, these apps can help save money by eliminating food waste with alerts on upcoming expiration dates and recipe ideas to use the food in quick, delicious ways. If a couple of free apps can help save $640 a year, I'd say they're worth the download.
Melissa L. Jones can be reached via email at mljones72@me.com
SundayMonday Business on 09/28/2015