It's dangerous to make New Year resolutions in these horror-filled days... so instead I've been leaning into other traditions.

One that I adopted from a friend is the Great Expired Food Purge.

This is where you go through every food item in your house and toss things that are expired. Although in this economy, I don't throw out anything that's lightly expired. That stuff gets put on a USE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE shelf so I can try to figure out what to do with it. Which is to say that, preferrably, I eat it.

Most of the stuff getting thrown out this year is the "lightly expired" stuff that I didn't throw out last year.

But a rare subset are things that I bought because they sounded good at the time and were on a sale too good to resist. Then they sit in my cupboard for a few years until there's nothing left to do except reluctantly throwing it in the trash. This is usually things like soup, pasta sauces, and salad dressings. I'll buy into a "Buy One Get One Free" or "Get One Half Price" or whatever. Then eat one and hate it. Then hope that I forget how bad it is so I'll eat it before it expires.

But here's the thing... how often do you forget eating terrible food?

In my case, the answer is apparently "never."

And that's what filled the grocery bag I just walked out to the trash.

Will I ever learn?

Likely not.