How much food do you waste,if none how do you manage that?

We waste barely anything because we have an allotment and compost most food waste. What goes into the compost bin is mainly veg peelings, coffee grounds and tea bags. This week I'll add a couple of strawberries that have gone furry. I freeze all meat as I buy it portioned into the quantity I'd use for 2 of us. I've taken some milk out of the freezer today that I froze on its BB date. There's no doubt a freezer helps but the best way to cut down waste is not to buy food you won't eat in the first place.

Could someone please share their recipe for a veg soup to use up all those wilted carrots, potatoes etc please?

I'm pretty good on food waste, but these sorts of things are my downfall. And so stupidly I never realized you could freeze bananas. Youngest loves smoothies so this will be perfect. Thanks all for the tips.

I find its better to make up a dish with random ingredients and save portions of that dish, rather than freeze the ingredients

So, peppers, carrots, leeks, aubergine, mushrooms (slimy little rascals), whatever - make it into a veggie curry and freeze that in batches

That will last longer than the individual ingredients where their texture will be compromised

You have to get used to the texture changing when freezing and not mind that so much or put into a dish where its not so vital.

We’ve definitely have veg and the odd time meat gone off, we both work away from the house and there’s times we’ve overlooked what’s there/ we took out something to thaw that we’d frozen but were home late. Have had oranges and apples go bad when eg the kids had sick tummies etc. Also a lot of veg doesn’t last a long as it used to. We freeze peppers and carrots when we can but tbh we’re pretty tired most of the time (I won’t say lazy as we’re not, just perhaps in this aspect of life!!)

@HoraceCope for any half used jars I pop them in the freezer, been doing it for years, never have they smashed

Always better to slice bread and take out slices you need, nice to toast straight from frozen

Apparently better for you I saw somewhere

i can never resist a reduced nice sour dough loaf and manage to squash that into the freezer because they are quite solid

none. I eat meat only so nothing wasted

Also things like pepperamis dont go off, they're so full of fat and salt they last for ever. Ive eaten them way way pasts their use by date

Yes I get that, I do run out of space sometimes too.

None. Veg peel and egg shells go in the compost bin.

Are you freezing it flat, large freezer bags, each slice put in next to each other, freeze it on its own sort of thing

Bread pudding when it builds up

Uses up a load of milk and eggs too

That only works if you have freezer space. We don’t all have that.

Almost everything that goes to waste in my house is because I can’t store it-as it is or cooked in to something else. It’s not lack of imagination, it’s lack of places to keep it.

i always buy frozen chicken pieces, frozen sweetcorn, frozen peppers so i dont think i am Too bad as regards food waste. just need to make room in the freezer for this blasted bread!

Oh and the dairylea, incorporate it somehow in to the dish or put squidges of it in the garlic bread

So I would have cooked up some sort of mexicany/spanishy chickeny stew thing with that

Sweetcorn, chicken and pepperamis (pretend chorizo), a bit of milk to make it creamy if you so wish. Tin of chopped toms and tons of spices and herbs to make the flavours, paprika etc. Onion and some peppers in it. Whizz up the salad with oil, garlic and nuts to make a pesto to drizzle over the top

Freeze portions of the chicken stew, freeze portions of the pesto stuff

Garlic bread, eat with the meal (double carbs, yes yes yes)

Milk - make a rice pudding, make a bread pudding? Make batches of porridge and freeze the porridge. Freeze portions of it as is.

Maybe my interpretation of food waste is wrong but I don't count those things as waste because I wasn't planning to eat them anyway. All of them can be used to make stock but you still throw them away after use.

i buy white bread, for the weekend,
dh buys himself a roll every day, i ask him each time, do you need white bread
and every week i have to throw away half a loaf!
no room in my freezer it is full of left overs and frozen veggies/fruit.
i wouldnt feed it to the birds as it encourages rats
dh has said, he will make croutons, or i guess i could turn them into bread crumbs, so currently the half a loaf remains here, waiting for its fate

Last week I threw away half a tin of sweetcorn, 2 chicken breast, bag of salad that never got eaten, 4 pepperarmies, a garlic bread, 2 pints of milk, some dairylea spread. I would say half a shopping bag a week which I don’t think is too bad. The cost does annoy me though usually while I’m binning it I’m shouting I might as well walked into the street and put the money down the drain 😂

I dont waste any food but then I live on my own, buy only frozen veg except carrots which are horrible frozen. I batch cook and freeze into portions.
The cats on the other hand waste a lot of food with gheir picky eating....I expect toddlers are the same.

Virtually nothing.

I meal plan the week and buy fresh veg for 5 days, using frozen veg for the last two evenings as necessary. Saturday morning, I always make some kind of veggie soup or veggie chilli to use up left over veggies.

Meal left-overs are used for lunches or frozen for later.

This week the only things in the food waste bag are chicken bones, a fish head and satsuma peel

Loads more than I like - live rurally, small freezer, young child, unpredictable schedule.

We have just had food waste bins. It will be full this week. I do try to meal plan but sometimes DD will eat loads, sometimes very little and I can’t keep it all.

Bread & salad is the main culprit. We have different bread and I can’t freeze it. It’s hard to cater for 1 accurately sometimes especially when you can’t buy the right quantities.

When we move I’m hoping to have a larger freezer which will make all the difference.

We compost and still have the odd thing, chicken carcasses, cat food scrapings, fruit stones etc.

only occasional fruit and veg that goes mouldy quickly
We meal plan and only buy what we need
Put leftovers in the fridge for WFH lunches or stick in freezer for when someone needs a meal
Freeze meat/fish if it’s looking like we might not use it
Look if anything needs using up before planning the next week’s meals

I suppose there isnt that much of that though is there. I also forgot that I sometimes do have chicken bones if OH has done his usual of cooking up virtually a whole bag of frozen flavoured chicken wings, barely eaten any of it. So instead of chucking that out, I boil it up and pick off the chicken and use the liquid as stock, then I throw the bones out.

It takes me weeks to get through the stock though by which time he's cooke dup more that do get binned as I cant get through it all