What do you always end up throwing away in your house?

[LondonStone]

In our household we can’t seem to get through a packet of raspberries or beansprouts without them going off.

Fancied some raspberries this morning and half of them are covered in furry mould and the other half are just brown mush. They were only bought on Friday night!

I’ve realised we quite often throw raspberries away so I think I probably won’t bother in future unless it’s for something specific.

@CPsRus

Sweet potatoes, celery, celeriac, butternut squash, pumpkin (vegbox). I used to give them away but covid.

@CPsRus

Sweet potatoes, celery, celeriac, butternut squash, pumpkin (vegbox) - those keep for ages, don't bin them, give them away. Covid or not they should be fine cooked.

Compost bin eases my waste guilt. I despair at plastic over - packaged food. Looking at you, M&S

Bread. About it.

Salad bags and bananas 🍌

I really do try not to waste food. Not for any moral reason, (the farmer who grows the potato and the greengrocer who sells it to me don’t care if I eat it or bin it as long as they get paid), but because it’s a waste of my hard-earned money. The only thing which does get wasted fairly regularly is salad leaves. Must try harder.

Cat food - i leave the leftovers in the garden. There's a little prickly visitor who eats it.

Almond milk.
I think I'm going to be virtuous.
Then I'm not 🙈

Oh and bread too.

I always put leftover bread out for the birds.
There's usually half a soggy iceberg lettuce chucked from the salad drawer every week.

And I'm guilty of sometimes throwing away meat, which I should freeze, but forget, then when I go to find it, it's a couple of days over the use by date. But that's me, not checking labels/being organised enough. I'm getting much better though.

Just wrt fresh herbs - you can freeze them.

Put them in a little plastic bag with some oil ( olive, sunflower, etc) and flatten the bag out. You can chop the herbs if you want. Then break some off when you want to use them.

Also, unopened, sealed tubs of mascarpone can be safely used well after the best by date if they've been in the fridge the whole time. I am living proof of this.

Dunk raspberries and blueberries into a bowl of water with a teaspoon or two of white vinegar, leave for five minutes and rinse thoroughly through a strainer. Drain on kitchen paper. They laaaaast way longer by doing this. The vinegar keeps the mould away!

There is NO taste of vinegar from them either provided you rinse thoroughly after their bath. I bought a few punnets of both in Aldi last Friday, and what is left is still intact, no furry bits and no vinegar taste either. Yum.

To keep celery fresh for ages, take out the plastic wrapping, and wrap completely in tin foil- lasts weeks and you can reuse the tinfoil for the next lot of celery

Cucumbers keep better out of their plastic wrapping and put if the fridge

Bread should always be kept in the freezer
It takes about 10 mins to defrost a couple
Of slices for a sandwich

Not too much waste these days, maybe the last bit of cucumber or a slice of ham or dregs of the hummus.
Lots of good tips on here but a simple one that's helped in our house is that the fridge is arranged with old stuff on the left. New shopping is put on the right of each shelf and the old stuff shifted across so if there are a couple of carrots on the left of the veg box they get eaten before the ones on the right. It's stopped me having to come across manky bits of pepper that ended up shoved to the back.

@ILoveShula we keep them until they go mouldy. I do the cooking and I don’t like them. DP says he will use them and never does. We compost them (donate them to the slugs). I hate food waste honestly. As soon as back to the office I will regift them (we don’t know anyone where we live).