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

Mustard wont go off, Ive got some thats years old. See also mint sauce and pickle

Just remembered to add to my OH's list of food waste crimes, he has gone through a phase in recent weeks of eating cheese and pickle sandwiches, lots of the bread would go in the bin as he woujld only have a couple of sandwiches per loaf. But he bought a jar of pickle, a few sandwiches in, he has gone off the whole idea now, he wont eat that pickle and so that will now go in the bin (I dont really eat pickle and have tons of jars of proper quality chutney to get through anyway)

The people who waste more food than they are comfortable admitting to aren't posting. They're may be worried someone will come along and berate them, this is MN so their concerns are probably well founded.

I used to be quite wasteful with food but something in my mindset changed about 25 years ago and now I'm pretty obsessive about not wasting food. Its a good thing if this thread gives anyone tips on how to waste less. IME it means changing habits until you have a new normal, it feels like a real effort to begin with but soon becomes second nature.

We hardly ever waste food, we eat what we cook, cook what we buy. Occasionally I have to throw out a carrot but that’s because it was bad in the first place. The dog eats leftovers if appropriate but if not we freeze and use later. I don’t buy food we won’t use.

Food waste is a huge issue in this country so clearly everyone who has some is feeling bad reading this thread and not posting.

Bread is the biggest culprit (we waste millions of loaves in the UK) and one where I struggle as I rarely remember to freeze it, or if I do, it gets frostbitten quickly. My husband and I like sourdough and it's usually all used but DD likes brown bread and DS likes white and they can't get through a whole one each before it goes off. BUT I am trying to sort it by getting smaller loaves and buying less often.

I do go to a food waste food stall (not foodbank!) and try to help by getting things from there to use up. I make a lot of soup. But I'm still guilty of buying things I hope the kids will eat (fruit mostly) and not getting through it all.

Me neither.
I have ocd (diagnosed not the stealth boast cleanliness kind) and the thought of an indoor caddy collecting waste food sat on my worktop as our council advises makes me feel physically sick.

Hardly any. We clear our plates. We serve food that the family like to eat in sensible portion sizes. If we cook too much we put the rest in the fridge and someone has it for lunch later in the week. I freeze extra portions and donate to Food Friends charity. Buy mostly frozen meat and fish so things don't get forgotten and go off in the fridge. We have five hungry people in the house so stuff like milk and bread nearly always runs out before going off. We compost fruit/veg bits.

Most weeks we have half a small green bag of food waste, mostly meat/fish bones, a few scraps from kids' plates, maybe the odd crumpet or hot x bun that got forgotten and mouldy.

Constantly amazed/appalled at how much food waste others generate.

Hardly anything. The odd slice of mouldy bread is about it.
I do plan meals and make an effort to use up leftovers - I really hate wasting food. Veg that are maybe a bit past their best will go in a soup.

Dogs and chickens eat anything we don't!

Of course eggs go off, and yes sometimes there'll be one left over in the egg box that gets forgotten about. If it doesn't pass the float or sink test it gets binned.

We don't eat them that often. The last ones we bought were to do cakes for a school cake sale a few weeks ago and never got round to finishing the box. Why is that so hard to believe?

We also have an allotment so try to eat veg and fruit seasonally, so in June/July we eat a lot of strawberries but we’d never buy them at the supermarket any other time. Lots of our fruit goes into the freezer as it’s picked and lasts for months. Any peelings go into a tub and back to the allotment to the compost heap. We eat very little meat, only chicken breast so no waste and fish.
We meal plan so eat everything in date and have no waste.
We are however, retired so have the luxury of living like this. I can imagine that this would be much more difficult if we were in full time work.

The only thing that causes food waste here is the bloody supermarket staff mishandling the products. Avocados that were evidently bruised, so a section starts rotting whilst they are still underripe, is the main one. Had it with some other fruit and veg recently and am finding increasingly irritating given how expensive everything is!

Almost none. I’m a planner and know what to buy and what we’re eating. We always freeze (or have the next day) leftovers. For example our Monday evening meal is pretty much always a rehash of our Sunday Roast in some form.

Ah, in that case - we have a wall chart which has meals on it by the date they go off!

We have an allotment so often have loads of veg we have to use. We have some large silicone ice cube trays and we freeze veg or soup home made savoury rice and pre cooked veg and save them in big bags . Then you can use up the left over veg and if you can’t eat it just freeze it. You also have cooked onions etc if you need some for a recipe so you don’t need to buy a whole bag. We waste virtually nothing and any peelings go in the compost

Very little, we meal plan so only get what we need for the week. There might be the odd bit of fruit that goes mouldy before we eat it but that’s about it.

The only thing I struggle with is mustard, horse radish, jam etc. they say use within 3, 6, 12 weeks and I can’t use them that quickly.

I find zero waste is impossible.
My bin currently contains meat bones (left over from making stock), fish bones & skin, egg shells, outer leaves of cabbages, root veg peelings & a small overdose of cooked pasta. And an accidentally cremated slice of pizza.

I make soup regularly, especially at the moment when the leeks in the garden are ready, I pick the 4-5 biggest every week to put in a soup. Everything else in the fridge or drawer that is nearing its demise goes in as well.

My neighbours come over for a week or two about 5 times a year and give us the contents of their fridge/cupboards when they go back. Carrots I peel, and freeze for roasting. Cheese I cube and freeze, we had some on pizzas this lunchtime. Anything else tends to not be too much so I'll just make sure I cook something to suit that week.

I don't meal plan, I don't go shopping with a full list (only stuff that has run out) and I still rarely have food waste beyond teabags, banana peels and onion skins.

I just look in the fridge, see what's there and needs to be used, and then use it on a daily basis. By use it, I either cook it and eat it that day, cook it and freeze it for another day, or freeze it then.

Living alone means I can use all sorts of odds and ends up in random ways, and it helps I am not very fussy about perfect meals either.

I dont buy salad products apart from flavoured beetroots, tomatoes and cucumbers, I only buy cherry tomatoes and mini cucumbers

When I was buying salad products it nearly always went slimy in the bag so I was chucking that in soup but theres only so many lettuce and spinach based soups you can eat

I dont buy things that Ive learned go to waste.

"Couple of floppy carrots" is fairly common here. Sometimes a bit of rotting lettuce or other vegetable, or the last bit of this or that in a neglected jar.

Certainly nothing on a large scale or worthy of lasting guilt.

Food waste stats are astonishing, given almost everyone seems to complain about the cost of food. Yet its said that each household wastes £10-15 per week on average

None of it is MNers though judging by this thread!

Too much, really. Just two of us and I'm the problem one, not DP, who eats pretty much anything and is waste-conscious. I have histamine intolerance so need to eat fresh food otherwise I have problems. I buy food online as I can't get to the shops so that probably doesn't help. Was easier when I lived over the road from the supermarket and used to buy a few things every few days.

I do compost waste veg but only from April-October as after that it's too cold and nothing rots down.

I have improved over the last year or so but 'could do better'!

Im just answering the poster who asked if they go off. The answer is no, they dont go off if ocvered in oil or brine

But if no one in the household is going to eat them, like the PP said, what would be the point?

We also waste almost nothing by freezing things that won't get used, using up veg before it goes off, making soup etc.

Also generally using common sense rather than sticking to dates. Someone mentioned throwing away eggs- how long must you have had those in without eating them?

But a MN tip that revives bendy carrots- put them in water and they'll be back to normal after a few hours and you can keep them like that for at least a few days.

Food waste stats are astonishing, given almost everyone seems to complain about the cost of food. Yet its said that each household wastes £10-15 per week on average. Why are people buying so much food and throwing it away?