Asklemmy

Personally, I'd go ahead and buy fresh stuff, in fair quantities, and cook it up into finished dishes. Then throw these into some reusable containers for freezing and later reheating. You can do this really well with things like chili, stews, soups, stuff like that. Can cube up fruit and then freeze the cubes for smoothies, and honestly I'd just go ahead and buy pre-frozen vegetables and berries and stuff. That all tends to be fairly decent, though it varies. Uses are whatever you want, they're all versatile. Breakfast omelette, throwing some into a soup you're getting tired of, quick roast to eat as a side, whatever.

And yeah, I feel your pain. Frankly, I usually end up squeezing the lemon into some water, just to not waste it. That's the best I have for that one. lol

Some waste is unavoidable sometimes, onions are a good example. You kinda need em, but if you don't use them periodically they definitely go bad and generate clouds of fruit flies. My best advice for that is advance meal planning, where you're buying for specific dishes you have planned in the next few weeks. Really, this entire approach boils down to advance meal planning, now that I think about it...