Come on, be honest: what ends up languishing at the back of your fridge at the end of the week? 'Fess up about your most neglected foodstuffs to Unilever Project Sunlight - and be in with a chance to win £250 NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

Most of us make an effort to plan our shop and minimise food waste, but even with the best will in the world, all too often we end up with items left over - and the people from the Unilever Project Sunlight would like to know which are your repeat waste offenders. Is there a fruit that always gathers mould at the bottom of the bowl? Or what about the last spoonful of pasta sauce that you swore you'd use up? Are you afflicted by unconsumed anchovies? Stressed out by surplus celery?

Please share what - despite your best efforts - you find yourself regularly binning on kitchen clean out day. And just to even things up a bit, why not let us know which foods you'd rate as your enduring heroes: the ones that could sit happily on your shelves and emerge perfectly edible even in the event of a nuclear apocalypse ...

Add your comment to the thread and you'll be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a a £250 voucher for the store of their choice.

Please note your comments may be used by Unilever and MN on the web, social media channels and possibly elsewhere. Please only add your comment if you're happy for it to be used like this. All comments used will be anon.

thanks and good luck
MNHQ

[SouthernComforts]

Cottage cheese! I'm the only person who eats it in my house, but I never finish the tub.

Sour cream - love it on fajitas, but what the frig do I do with the rest of it?

The green pepper.

[trikken]

Those tubs of sandwich fillers. Egg mayo and the chicken and bacon ones. We usually use it once then forget about it leaving the other half to go off. If I dont buy it though everyone complains about not having any. Oh and parsnips and lettuce. I always find sad versions of these in the salad drawer. Pate is my food hero as it buy it but its date is so long it's always good still no matter when I find it.

[MumsyFoxy]

Aubergines, always intend to make that Aubergine parmigiana, hardly get round to it abd they go off quickly
Courgettes: see above!
Fresh herbs: I use half, then the rest goes off in the fridge. I should freeze it!
Fresh cream.

[Fizzyplonk]

Last couple of vac PAC beetroot
Pate
Lettuce

Peanut butter seems to last well- often eat in an emergency!

[CheeseEMouse]

I always seem to forget about cucumber and satsumas tend lo languish a bit as I am not quick enough to eat them. Pesto always goes fuzzy quicker than I think it should too.

[AndHarry]

I always seem to have a courgettte left at the end of the week. I really like them but somehow forget to include it in the recipe I bought it for.

Bomb-proof fridge items include sun-dried tomatoes, curry paste and bottles of lemon and lime juice. My toddler is obsessed with glass bottles and it's a good thing she can't get those lids off or she'd drink the lot.

As an aside, I have early childhood memories of my dad regularly visiting Unilever at Port Sunlight and being really disappointed that I wasn't allowed to go, until I found out that it was in Liverpool and not a nice island in the Caribbean!

[gasbird]

Sour cream
Coleslaw
Courgette
Salsa
Eggs

If anyone has a recipe suggestion for the above let me know!

[Nouseforausername]

Big mushrooms in this house. i like them and it's cheaper to buy a pack in aldi than 2 or 3 elsewhere so always ent up with one gross one at the bottom of the veg drawer, and natural yogurt that i need a table spoon of for a curry and then don't know what to do with the rest.

[SixImpossible]

What is it about baked beans? Four out of the five of us like them, yet whenever we have them half a container ends up at the back of the fridge. It doesn't matter whether I buy a 5-day jar, a standard tin, or a 4-pack of snackpots. Whatever container I open ends up back in the fridge, half-eaten. And there it sits for days and days, until it evolves new life-forms and I eventually decide to play god and bin it.

[Mitchy1nge]

meat, I have great intentions every day to make something rich and protein-y that isn't a spinach omelette but they never come to anything

there is currently a life-threateningly old lamb shank in the fridge and some beef that am too scared to confront on its way to the outside bin but thanks for the prompt, I will hold my breath and do it now

[SixImpossible]

But gasbird that's a fabulous lunch! You could do so much with it:

Grate courgette, add to coleslaw, serve with hardboiled eggs and dollops of salsa and of sour cream.

Slice courgettes, fry in butter. Beat egg with sour cream, pour over courgettes to make a courgette omelette. Dollop of salsa in the middle, fold omelette over, and serve with coleslaw.

[AGnu]

Not a lot really. DH is a bit of a dustbin & will usually eat anything that's getting a bit iffy. He's also really good at planning meals to make sure everything gets used.

If something does go off it's because I've told DH it's for something specific & he absolutely mustn't touch it... Then I forget about it.

[choccyp1g]

Unwaxed lemons and cream. I have these grand plans to make lemon posset but I use the cream for something easier, and then the lemons sit there getting hard.

[ouryve]

I tend to do pretty well, really. At the end of last week, I chucked out a couple of soggy mushrooms, a couple of inches of cucumber that was threatening to turn to liquid, half a lemon, a wrinkly piece of leek (home delivery - I'd asked for one leek and it was much bigger than I needed and it had languished for over a week before I concluded that I really had no other use for it) and the tough end of a sweetheart cabbage.

Where we live is prone to power cuts, so I normally have a tin of ham lurking in the cupboard. I don't even like tinned ham, but it's something that DS2 would actually eat, if push came to shove. They tend to sit there for about 3 years and it's very rare that I think to actually either use it up in something, or donate it before it does go out of date, if I haven't needed it.

[BrieAndChilli]

Half used pots of cream
Lemons, buy a pack and only use half
Salad bags
Half open tuna of tomato puree

[teejayem]

Courgettes. I've been meaning to make a courgette ribbon pasta thing for the last,ooooh, 6 weeks, and have bought courgettes every week while out shopping, only to throw them away as I keep forgetting they exist as soon as they go into the fridge.
not sure if anyone else has experienced the stone cold horror of rotten courgette juice, something between garbage and rotten fish, which is doing my morning sickness absolute wonders. Imagine that in your salad drawer, immersing all other veg items. Nightmare.

[loudarts]

Packets of sandwich meat. Dh forgets that the dc have school dinners during the week and buys big packs that have to be eaten within a couple of days, get opened on Sunday and then forgotten about.

[26Point2Miles]

Spinach!! Such good intentions....

[Mitchy1nge]

I WILL EAT YOUR SPINACH (addict)

[TheGonnagle]

The last inch of a cucumber, putrefying gently in the salad drawer.
And apple sauce. I always make apple sauce for roast pork but only my dad and I like it, so I put the rest in a bowl in the fridge 'to have with yoghurt in the week', for which read 'I will forget about this and hide it behind other stuff so it can grow a new universe'.

[Dolallytats]

Vegetables that I buy to try, but then don't know what to do with them or what to have them with-celeriac is the number one culprit!!

I also buy ginger and chillies for specific recipes and then don't cook them.

[PrettyPictures92]

Cheese! Not the whole block mind, just that last little bit that isn't enough to stick on a sandwich. We love cheese in this house, normally go through almost two blocks a week but there's still that bit left (that ends up chucked out) by the time I do the next weekly shop.

[nemno]

In the veg drawer I usually have chillis, garlic and ginger but I eventually do throw the shriveled surplus away.

But my biggest problem is sauce bottles; like oyster, BBQ, thai fish or sweet chilli. They are too big and take up space for far too long, often expiring in the process (but I use anyway if not too overdue).

Salami, stuffed pasta, pate have great use by dates and are usually present in my fridge. As are bacon and eggs where I ignore the dates.

[ImGoingForATwix]

I always try to use stuff up, but quite commonly the following gets thrown out:
-Spring onions
-Creme fraiche and greek yoghurt
-The odd rubbery carrot (even though I keep these in the fridge to prolong their lives)
-Pesto

[pseudonymity]

Since I've been planning meals properly there's less waste. But: jars of stuff, I always forget how long they've been open and end up throwing them out.

Squash and pumpkins last forever.