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

[SundayFunday555]

Intrigued as to what is deemed as a good amount and how people get to zero.

I wouldn't throw any of those jars unless there was actual mould. We have stuff like that for months/years it's fine.

Eggs last absolutely ages in the fridge. (Except when dd1 is here as she eats loads of them lol)

@Runnersandtoms the leeks had been there three weeks and gone off (I had used 2/5 in the packet), carrots same (I actually don’t find they last ages in my fridge tbh - 2 weeks usually). The meats were oversights - had planned to use but missed the dates on both so couldn’t freeze. I do freeze things but limited capacity and the children are in and out (they love frozen fruit) of it so things end up getting freezer burnt.

None. I’m vegetarian, and any peelings/eggshells go in my compost bin. I don’t buy food I don’t need.

This. Sometimes the dc get a choice of food, sometimes they are just given something that needs eating! Also slightly odd meal combinations occasionally. No food waste here.

I ignore the "use within x weeks" completely. Some food deteriorates once exposed to air but if you are using clean tools to get food out of the jar it will be fine. Sticking the butter knife in the jam jar is almost certainly going to introduce bread crumbs and make jam go mouldy. Food in vinegar may get a bit softer but will otherwise be perfectly safe to eat.

Probably to much, we try to use everything but potatoes, limp carrot and veg do get put in tbe food waste, honestly im not that bothered by it, irs not like im bining a steak or a whole chicken.

I don't understand how people have so little. Don't you have eggshells and the ends of carrots, and onion skins and the stemmy bits of parsley, or the tips of green beans, chicken bones and so on? Outer leaves of sprouts and cabbage, that sort of thing?

Eat more pesto?! . This attitude may be why I’m overweight though 😆

I remembered something I used to do with bags of salad before I stopped buying it, whizz it up with some nuts and garlic and olive oil and you have a sort of pesto, so rocket, lettuce, spinach, watercress that sort of thing. Just mix it together. Keep it in the fridge in oil, or again freeze it.

I have had to become blind to food waste possessing a toddler. Sudden "don't like it" combined with random bugs and plan changes and so on means a fair amount goes in the bin.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 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

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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