Inflation and the consequent increase in prices of all essential commodities make both ends meet so difficult, especially for those in middle class and lowest strata of society.

The only way out to spend in accordance with expense.

If we take a little care, we can save food that can feed at least 2 destitutes a day!!!

1. Use pressure cooker to cook pulses, vegetables, and meat those take a long time to cook. You can save much fuel.
2. If you and your family have the habit of eating-out frequently, cut off the number of eating-outs into half. No need to say eating out is much costlier than homely food.
3. Those who have compound at home can start cultivating vegetable for their own use. It is a delightful hobby, a good exercise and an opportunity for family get‑together too and let children as well join you in the process. Terrace also can be used for cultivation purpose.
4. Cut off non-vegetarian food consumption into half. Try this - fish once in a week and meat once in a week. It's healthy too.
5. Cook only required quantity of food. Even if you keep the excess food in the fridge and use it the next day, it is not good for health.
6. Make use of your creativity by making new dishes out of leftover food like puttu upma with leftover puttu, chapati masala or chapati roll, idli, ularthiyathu, etc.
7. Don't cook food by keeping the vessel in a high flame. Cooking food in a high flame will not make the cooking process faster but will result in the wastage of fuel. Cook in high flame only when required.
8. Usually we will not eat curry leaves from the dishes, instead, we put it in the waste plate, especially children. To avoid this, grind curry leaves along with the spices/coconut or chop it and saute it along with the spices.
9. Use all parts of vegetables without discarding anything. For example: you can use skin of plantain for making thoran, a Keralite dish) while using its flesh for making moru curry. Likewise skin of kumbalanga (ash gourd), mathanga (pumpkin), etc. can be used to make vattals/kondattams by boiling them in water, adding salt and sun dried. They are so tasty.
10. Seeds of pumpkin also is a good snack if fried adding salt (not in oil). The fibre‑like content of pumpkin, that we used to discard, is good to make chammanthi. Fry a teaspoon udad dal & 2-3 red chilies in one teaspoon oil. Then saute this fibre-like content of pumpkin and saute for few minutes until it's raw taste gone. Then grind in a mixer along with a little tamarind and salt. It is a very good condiment with rice.
11. Soaking pulses before cooking helps to reduce cooking time and fuel consumption.
12. Diary products are so expensive in market. Why can't we make them at home? Cheese, cream, curd, butter, ghee, etc. can be easily made at home without sparing any extra milk. Collection of cream regularly from milk: after boiling milk keep it open. Then the thick layer of its cream will be formed on the surface of milk. You can use the milk, keeping the cream in it. When you keep the milk in the refrigerator, you will get thicker cream. Collect this cream each day, keep it in an airtight container and store it in freezer. You can use this in curries after whipping a little. When the container is filled, pour in some curd and next day whip it. Then you will get the same amount of butter. When this butter is melted and its particles are removed, you will get good homemade ghee.
13. If you install a biogas plant in your compound, you can use kitchen wastage to make fuel for cooking. You will also get fertilizers for your kitchen garden from the plant.
14. Remnants of vegetables like carrots, beans, outer leaves of cabbage, hard stem of cauliflower, seeded parts of ash gourd, cucumber etc, after cutting them for preparing other curries, can be used to make vegetable stock for making soup, biryani, etc. add garlic and ginger to the remnants of vegetables and boil in plenty of water for 10 minutes. Strain and keep it in refrigerator for using in soups and other preparations that need vegetable stock.
15. Bones of meat also can be used as above for making meat stock after removing flesh for preparing boneless dishes. Stock without any extra expenses can be prepared like this
16. Water Melon. We use to discard the white part of water melon near to its skin after using the red part, that white portion can be used to make curries in the place of ash gourd, by removing the hard skin.

How to avoid buying from supermarkets?

Just check your shopping bags while you come out of the supermarket after a shopping. Is all the stuff in there is that you wanted to buy. You will, definitely, say a loud NO!!! That is the psychology of supermarkets. Even if you bring a list of necessary articles to buy, you will keep on putting into your shopping carts almost all unnecessary items you come across.

Just prepare a list of necessary groceries and articles and entrust in your nearby grocery shop. They will pack just those items for you or you can also entrust the list with the staff of supermarket and ask them to pick them for you before you return from some other work. Just notice how much you save...