to ask, who wastes all the food?

[amigababy]

So Tesco is removing the best before dates on its own fruit and vegetables.
Wrap, the food waste body, say that in Britain families throw away £700 of food a year ( I've read that a few times over recent years). So for me that would equate to 10 full weeks of shopping every year, discarded. More, if I assume at least 10% of every weeks shop is non food items.

I reckon I throw away maybe a £ a week of food - half a bag of salad, a half tin of beans that sat in the fridge too long, the last slice of ham. So at worst say £60 a year. Who's throwing away all the rest to get to these averages? I want to understand.

I've just had a massive fridge clean out. I threw away 1 stick of celery, 1 chilli, half a pepper and half a tub of salsa. Maybe a pound's worth?

Not us.

With two teenage boys in the house, a variety of their friends, children I mind and two adults, my huge larder fridge is always empty. Food isn't in the house long enough to go off or to waste.

Ref. leftover bananas, if you have a garden or even balcony NEVER throw them. they're great in the compost , also for putting whole round roses, The nasty insects don't like them, but all\most plants that like an acid environment which bananas give them!

I don't think i've ever even looked at a use by date on fruit and veg so I won't miss their absence.

Cannot imagine throwing away £13 worth of food each week. Most weeks we'd only throw away a tiny amount of leftovers like a tablespoon of rice or similar.

My oh won't (knowingly) eat anything out of date and like Rocinte's upthread he refuses to ignore the Sat nav even when we both know a different route would be quicker.
We grew up stretching our food and making do but my mum seems to have forgotten that- she now refuses to eat bread past the "best before" 🙄 surely bread is fine unless it is dry or green?
We tend to waste salad bits here though.

Have you not seen all the “would you eat this” threads?! And some of the responses are batshit

perhaps if food prices rise these practices will change? Lets hope so.

cloudtree why should life get even harder for those on a tight budget, because other people are wasteful? I might waste the odd half a cucumber or couple of tomatoes but I have to budget my shopping carefully and any price hikes would hurt my family a lot.

I love cooking and try to waste as little as possible. So if the bananas go brown, I make banana cake. If the veg is past it’s best, I make veggie stock. I had a couple of left over burgers the other day, they made a dozen sausage rolls. My problem is freezer space, despite having three freezers they fill up quickly. So every now and again my husband does a freezer audit and we try to eat out of the freezer as much as possible for a week or two. It doesn’t half cut down on food bills. It helps that I have a Thermomix so can magic up all sorts of lovely food out of very little. And I find cooking relaxing! A friend gave me some marked down cream and eggs from her chooks last week, and I made us both salted caramel ice cream which I reckon is better than Haagen Daz. It would genuinely upset me to see people throwing out food like some people mentioned here! If they gave that food to me I could make lovely things out of it!

I hardly waste anything. Weekly maybe a pound like you - the bottom of a pot of yogurt, half a tin of beans, maybe a bit of milk that has gone funny.

My mum on the other hand is terrible. When it was just her and my dad she spent over £100 a week in Asda and didn't really meal plan. Bought expensive steaks, lamb chops, ready meals etc. She'd have enough meat to make 15 meals but after 5-7 days it had gone off. Also she buys loads of fruit and veg and throws it away because she never eats it. Most weeks I'd say she wastes in excess of £20 worth of food. I once saw her throw away 2 fillet steaks from the expensive farm shop up the road worth £15. It hurt. For me, DP and DD9m our food budget is £40 a week, including a tub of formula. So watching her throw away so much hurts.

Although their household income is right times what ours is so they can afford it.

Should be eight times.

My dh used to, which shocked me considering he’s from a poor Asian country and actually knows how to prepare real food. Some people just grow stupid when they see best before dates or a warning which is why Tesco is presumably removing them.

Most food waste actually comes out of the supply chain rather than consumers (not to say consumers aren't also partly to blame). I work with a number of food banks and it's things like a pallet of oil gets imported, one breaks so the rest are slimy. Dented boxes etc. They will bin the whole pallet. Similarly, all food that comes off airplanes will be binned, including unopened cans and bottles of drink, cup noodles etc. Also, things not meeting supermarket shape and size requirements which is ridiculous if you think about it.

I throw away very little that’s still in the state I bought it. It’s leftovers that are the main problem for me.
Dinner tonight is beef stir fry. There might be a whole portion left over, or none depending on how hungry people are. What should I do with that? Be pretty disgusting heated up?

Then there’s half a piece of toast, remains of a packed lunch (again, sometimes they’re more hungry than other times). I can’t keep an oatcake with cheese that’s gone sweaty, or a yoghurt that’s been out of the fridge all day?

I don’t know where I’m going wrong compared to the people with hardly any waste.

What's amazing me is how many people are saying it's their parents / elderly people doing this. I would have imagined they grew up in a more frugal / lest wasteful time and would hate waste.

DragonsAndCakes why would beef stir fry be disgusting heated up?

I used to waste an awful lot of food, throwing out packs of mince, sausages beef etc just because we'd order takeaway or something instead.

It's just me and the kids now though and I waste far less! I'm funny with chicken/fish/sausages and a bit picky with fruit but it mostly gets eaten quite fast. Vegetables though I'll still use even if they're sprouting new roots!

Saying that, I made chicken curry a while back, ate half, saved the rest in a Tupperware container and ate the following day. Was violently vomiting within 24 hours

BOOP Im some older people's cases they're losing it a bit, DM sees a reduced label and buys the product , she doesn't even think , will I eat that ? It's a problem caused by the shops IMO. They should give the 'fresh' food to the food banks before it gets too old.

My parents are dreadful for this sort of thing. likewise they don't see why they should recycle. I think that its a bit of a backlash from the times (40s/50s in particular) when they couldn't afford to just throw things away.

She's not poor either!

Since I’ve been on a low carb, no sugar diet I’ve seen a lot more food waste in our home. I can’t hoover up other people’s leftover pasta or bread any more and it just goes in the compost bin.

We’ve switched to smaller plates so a normal portion fills the space but DH regularly leaves food on his plate because of “eyes bigger than belly” problems. And that food has been messed about with and can’t be offered to anybody else.

More avoidable waste. It’s a symptom of food inequality (wide choice and relatively low prices) in the developed world. We don’t want to be fat so we throw food away instead of buying less of it.

I am decidedly narked with Aldi - bought a bag of carrots and two of them are just like they've been next to something frozen - gone to liquid.
Not brown, just wet liquid.
Still in date, cba to take them back, those 2 will compost

My friend does.
He goes food shopping with no plan for what will be eaten when/with what. He just thinks. "Oh, that looks good, so I'll buy it."
He's a sucker for the three for one deal so will buy three packets of sausages when there are already two packets in the fridge that can't possibly be used before they expire.
He then can't be arsed cooking and orders a takeaway. His fridge is full of mouldy/slimey food.

Dragonsandcakes What should you do with leftover stir fry? Reheat, covered, for aprox 1 min in microwave for lunch if you're near a microwave. Or put in a small tub and freeze for when you may need a quick ready meal. Why would it be disgusting if it was nice when you made it?
I agree packed lunch leftovers are generally beyond use, especially in hot weather.

I too am interested in the number of DMs and MILs who are cited as wasting foor. My DPs lived through the war and rationing so were frugal. I grew up with them and acquired the habit. We waste virtually nothing, and I feel incredibly ashamed if something does go off.

Some things are remedied. There are many uses for dried bread, bananas are good for cooking even if they've gone liquid, off milk makes amazingly light scones. Meat approaching sell-by date can be put into arrested development by freezing. Similarly veg and fruit if they're looking like they won't last much longer.