to be shocked that 70% of food waste is from our homes? Do people not eat leftovers?

[MLMshouldbeillegal]

ahdb.org.uk/news/consumer-insight-positive-movements-in-uk-food-waste-reduction-reverse-as-covid-19-restrictions-are-removed

71% of food waste - 4.5 MILLION TONNES - annually is from our homes. Retailer and restaurants get stick in the press for throwing things away but really, they're not the problem, are they? Only 4% of food waste is produced by reailers.

It's us who are being wasteful. Throwing away 4.5 million tonnes of food each year is obscene. Do people not eat leftovers? Freeze what they're not using and keep it another day?

My food waste - being a single person and not being able to buy small quantities. I find it gets worse towards Christmas or Easter when supermarkets expect households to get together. There is a market in the city I could go to at weekend but then have the issue of correct quantities but need to be eaten soon (the grocers in my town are not open outside times when I’m at work.)

• not being a good cook, partly disability.
• I tried freezing things they seem to get frost so maybe I’m not doing it right.

Honestly also some laziness.

We almost never throw food away, it is an error when it happens but can't remember the last time.

We cook pretty much everything from scratch so it is easy to switch things around and use up what needs using.

We spend time and money on ingredients, so we want to use up bread for breadcrumbs etc, when we spent our own time making the bread in the first place.

@EdgeOfTheSky

We have never had food waste as a household.

Meal planning.

Freeze extra or leftovers.

Don’t overbuy stuff with a short use-by

Mostly cook from scratch (simple quick meals, busy working household) so easy to incorporate a lone carrot etc.

Don’t overload plates, seconds or bread, cheese and fruit available so fewer plate scraps.

I cannot remember the last time I put anything other than peelings and cooking debris, chicken bones, coffee grounds or tea bags in the caddy.

Well done you. Would say the same when DD was younger. However as they get older I've become more cautious about cooking hte same thing for everyone and DD prefers grazing.

Lots of teens have been on the verge of eating disorders in Covid.

So I'm happy within reason that DD eats properly. Even if it is a bit random.

So, yes meal planning at best.
But meal planning doesn't work for us!

I think the potato peelings and banana skins are a red herring. Restaurants and takeaways will generate that sort of compostable waste too, as well as chicken bones, and other non-edible bits we cut off.

The WRAP study linked in this article talks about "food that could have been eaten".

www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/24/uk-households-waste-45m-tonnes-of-food-each-year

That's not chicken bones and potato peelings. It's 10 BILLION edible meals a year, worth £10 billion, which is obscenely wasteful, whatever way you slice it.

I am the sort of cook who will just invent a meal out of what's in the fridge so do my best to use up leftovers. But I think supermarkets and other retailers also have to take responsibility and stop forcing us to buy things in set quantities. I'm walking - I don't want to carry a whole bag of potatoes home!

Like a few other posters, I live alone, so buying packed salad or similar means I end up with huge bags that go off before I finish them.

Some food waste can not be helped. I am not sure what I can do with chicken bones, spent tea bags or avocado peel (not everyone has access to a compost heap,, or has food waste collection). I do try and plan meals so I only buy what I need, but sometimes I go a little off-piste if my mental health is bad and feel I can't prepare a meal.

I'm not shocked but I am disgusted.With all the climate issues etc not only we shop without thinking we actually throw it out instead of eating it.Its even worse when its meat...a creature has died for you and you put it in a bin..

@XenoBitch

Like a few other posters, I live alone, so buying packed salad or similar means I end up with huge bags that go off before I finish them.

Some food waste can not be helped. I am not sure what I can do with chicken bones, spent tea bags or avocado peel (not everyone has access to a compost heap,, or has food waste collection). I do try and plan meals so I only buy what I need, but sometimes I go a little off-piste if my mental health is bad and feel I can't prepare a meal.

Me too.

Also before Covid, it was way easier to say to a neighbour 'hey I've bought too much of X or it was a big bag...do you want some?

But with covid people are more cautious about it.

Im of an age where home economics was taught in school, including basic meal planning, budgeting and cooking skills. Sadly It seems as though schools no longer do this in favour of IT and technology classes, and it’s a shame as a better understanding of what to do with what’s left in the fridge or cupboards would stop people running to the shops every night for food they may not need.

@Aggy35

I'm not shocked but I am disgusted.With all the climate issues etc not only we shop without thinking we actually throw it out instead of eating it.Its even worse when its meat...a creature has died for you and you put it in a bin..

"We" don't "shop without thinking"...

I'm sure some people do, but the vast majority of the people on here rack their brains as to how to not waste food, save money and shop for the benefit of their households.

I don't think massive generalisations are at all helpful, personally.

I’m not surprised - it’s sometimes a lot of effort to use up leftovers, though we normally do so as I’m tight! For lunch today we are eating chicken noodle soup - made using last nights roast chicken and leftover veg. The leftovers from the soup will be frozen and reheated for lunches / packed lunches during the week.

@PlanktonsComputerWife

This is why we invented stews, soups, pasta sauces, curries- so we could toss in odd bits of vegetables, bacon on its last legs, an old cup of tea. Otherwise, old veg or meat carcasses- make stock. People who throw away perfectly good savoury ingredients are probably just not knowledgeable cooks and there should be more education about it.

I can't fathom throwing away food. I found a mouldy bit of courgette that had done a kamikaze death dive out of the vegetable drawer and it had to be thrown away- I felt really cheated!

Toss in an old cup of tea? I’m great at producing meals from dribs and drabs but that’s beyond even me!

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus

Genuine question - is it possible to compost indoors or does it have to be done in a garden?

It has to be done outdoors, I've never used a genuinely smell-free bin and the bran that you need to create the bokashi method becomes high volume in no time and you still need to bury the contents eventually.

The only workaround that I know is for people who are relatively near a community garden and drop off their compostables there. However, that's dubiously successful because so many people won't sort their food waste into the stuff that can be composted readily versus the stuff that can take years.

Thank you. I'm not aware of a community garden nearby but will check. I don't produce much food waste, it's generally things like tea bags, peelings, inedible skins/ rind, egg shells. I don't have leftovers unless I deliberately make 2 or 4 portions so I can freeze some.

@meemaww

Im of an age where home economics was taught in school, including basic meal planning, budgeting and cooking skills. Sadly It seems as though schools no longer do this in favour of IT and technology classes, and it’s a shame as a better understanding of what to do with what’s left in the fridge or cupboards would stop people running to the shops every night for food they may not need.

Some schools do.

The food issues are complicated though.

My DD's primary school did a marvellous day entitled 'Evil Supermarkets'.

Showing kids how supermarkets can do all kinds of dirty tricks such as BOGOF, putting sweets where toddlers can reach them etc.

That was radical indeed and absolutely brilliant.

We fill up a lot of food bags as part of our recycling but it doesn't mean we waste food.
We make a lot of soup and buy huge bags of tatties direct from the farm so have a lot of peelings.
Does the figure include this kind of waste?
I mean who eats their banana skins of egg shells? They can be useful on garden but even then you only need so many

Holding my hands up here! I waste a fair amount of food. I’ve thought about the financial impact, but never the eco impact before so this thread has been eye opening for me. I’m also feeling rather ashamed.

A lot of our waste stems from tiredness - we’ve young kids, life is busy and I’ve caring responsibilities too. Kids are fussy eaters, we’re perma shattered and I’m not a very good cook. Maybe all of these seem like excuses, and maybe they are, but these are the reasons I’ve thought of during reading this thread.

I’ll put my thinking cap on about how to reduce our waste from here onwards even if it’s only being more mindful whilst I shop rather than buying stacks because I’m too tired and don’t want to go shopping again anytime soon.

Typical food that we tend to waste are fruit, veg and meat. Ones that rarely last to go off are milk and bread. Does anyone know of a good website with recipes for lazy and pretty rubbish cooks that are quick and easy please?!

"@Aqua55 that seems like a selfish attitude. Do the millions going to bed hungry cross your mind at all?"

People are not going hungry because of Aqua's waste.

@XenoBitch

Like a few other posters, I live alone, so buying packed salad or similar means I end up with huge bags that go off before I finish them.

Some food waste can not be helped. I am not sure what I can do with chicken bones, spent tea bags or avocado peel (not everyone has access to a compost heap,, or has food waste collection). I do try and plan meals so I only buy what I need, but sometimes I go a little off-piste if my mental health is bad and feel I can't prepare a meal.

I gave up getting bags of salad leaves a couple of years ago and now get whole lettuces instead - sometimes sweet gem, sometimes red cos sometimes iceberg. They seem to last longer than the bagged leaves I guess because they aren't ready chopped. I do eat lettuce with both lunch and dinner pretty much every day though so get through a whole lettuce quite easily before it starts to go off. Others might not.

"generally things like tea bags"

Apparently some teabags have plastic in them so can't be composted properly.

Very rare to have waste here.

All peelings we compost. It really would make a huge difference if people composted their own stuff where possible, as then you haven’t got unnecessary mileage of your old banana skins being collected and driven elsewhere creating extra pollution.
Those little beehive type composters are good if little space and aesthetics

We plan meals when we shop. So the first few days are fresh meat or soft fruits, by the end of the week we are having stir fried rice with leftover veg, and apple crumble with slightly soft apples.

I don't like leftovers but when I cook, I plan to cook just enough/use up everything or plan the next meal to use the rest of an ingredient.

Then I go to the fridge to find that DP has used two spoonfuls from a tin of tuna more as a seasoning than a main ingredient and left the open tin in there probably after leaving it out overnight with three thirds of red onions, two 4/7ths of peppers and half a tomato in there to go off. Or the second half of the pack of sausages has been on the counter overnight and has feline tooth marks and two that were cooked last night are still in the pan whilst the superexpensive GF loaf has dried to a brick.

Frankly, I don't trust leftovers here and the miserly portions accompanied by wasting the rest by making them potentially dangerous to somebody on immunosuppressive medication leave me murderous.

My diet is becoming more and more individual packets of plastic wrapped items the longer this bumbling food hygiene disaster is out of work.

When I've asked before what bothers people about waste they've said overconsumption, but if so, tackle all overconsumption. There are plenty of people who buy and eat much more food than they need. Why not criticise them too?

Its even worse when its meat...a creature has died for you and you put it in a bin..

Totally agree.

We currently have a shocking amount of food waste and it drives me crazy.

At the moment it's bananas - DD went through a phase of wanting a banana instead of breakfast as she dashed to high school so I bought them, only for her to decide she's bored of bananas but not actually say anything. I'm making a lot of banana muffins and smoothies to compensate.

Ditto avocados - they are rock hard for days, ripe for 20 minutes then black and mushy. Also burger buns, which go mouldy as soon as the packet is open.

DD and DH are both a pain in the ass for Not Being In The Mood for various meals. I am of the It Needs Using Up mindset, so there are frequent arguments about it. I don't care if you're not in a stir fry mood, the noodles you asked me to buy in the shopping need using today, so stir fry it is. Ditto ready meals and salads.

I do batch cook a lot, which helps. Also most veg will happily become soup, and I dearly love soup; it's my favourite part of winter.

@Gwenhwyfar

"generally things like tea bags"

Apparently some teabags have plastic in them so can't be composted properly.

Most tea bags contain polypropylene And won't fully compost.

Using tea leaves gets round this! But PG Tips are now plastic free, along with much more expensive brands.

I wondered for ages what the grey indestructible bits in my compost were because this was more widely known. I bin them now unfortunately.