Food wastage

[forgotmyusername1]

Apparently the average family throws away £800 a year of food.

I can honestly say we throw next to nothing.

What are your top tips for avoiding food wastage?

Are you a user or a chucker?

Really obvious one, but if a child refuses to finish a snack I put the remaining food in a small IKEA snack bowl in the fridge. Next time they ask for a snack, out the bowl comes!
So obvious but I'm sure it's saved us £100s particularly.over the summer holidays etc...

I grate blocks of cheese that are starting to go into a bag in the freezer. Good for putting on top of things like pasta bake before it goes in the oven

I keep reading stats like that and find it hard to believe.

Like you, we waste almost nothing, maybe the last scrap of bread or salad that's been forgotten about.

For the average to be that high (over £15 pw), some people must be throwing away about half their weekly shop to make up for those of us who use just about everything we buy.

We meal plan and weigh pasta/rice/potatoes so we don't cook too much. Also am very careful with BB dates when in the supermarket.

I keep a close eye on dates of yogurt etc. If I see that they're not being eaten quickly enough then DC/DH are strongly encouraged to eat them before anything else, and occasionally (e.g. if people have been ill) we will eat 2 or 3 each in a day so they're not wasted.

I keep reading stats like that and find it hard to believe.

I don't find it hard to believe. Have you ever seen the "eat well for less" show on BBC? People routinely chucking away perfectly good food because they don't make a list and end up with 6 lettuces and 10 blocks of cheese, or because they don't fancy whatever they've bought and get a takeaway, or because they are like many MN germaphobes and will not touch something one second past its best before date, won't freeze and defrost, won't ever ever eat leftovers etc etc.

It's the food turns to poison at the stroke of midnight on the best before date brigade

OH is a chucker. He is obsessed by dates or 'left overs'. Wont eat anything left in the fridge thats been opened, probably more than a day. Anything frozen for more than a few weeks he wont eat.

I am completely the opposite, eating eggs, yoghurt, milk, bread, cheese, all well past the date

We dont eat the same. He likes ready foods and I cook all my own food from scratch.

People are starving in the world and this country and people throw away perfectly good food, its dreadful

Exactly. And the "ewwwww leftovers, how gross" brigade, and the "it's not safe to freeze meat" brigade.

Does he think ready meals were made the day before he bought it?

We are big on batch cooking and making our own ready meals.

User. I genuinely think the dates on food are a total con and should be removed. People need to use their nose and eyes to assess food. I never check a date and we have never been ill. I plan and shop carefully, weigh portions, eat leftovers the next day. It’s really not hard. I bet the people moaning about their food bills are the ones chucking lots out. If I buy something reduced or on offer I usually just freeze it straight away.

We freeze bread and meat on the day of purchase. Split packs of meat into portions and only take out amount to defrost for what is needed to make a meal for our family of 4.

Same people are complaining about energy bills while refusing to wear an item of clothing more than once

Are you my DH? 😝

He's obsessive about this.

I can't remember the last time we threw away food. I think it was an off onion at the end of a bag.

(I'm obviously not counting things you normally chuck like cheese rind or innards of a pepper.)

My dm on the other hand is terrible. She must have a full compliment of vegetables in the fridge at all times. And she lives alone.

I dont have discussion with him about any of this any more. He can believe what he wants to believe.

I cant wait for the day when use and sell by dates are removed from items that they dont need to be on.

Ive got stuff in the freezer thats easily a year old, Im working my way through it. He wouldnt touch stuff like that.

He'll say 'my god this has been in here since Christmas' and Im thinking 'I better not reveal its last Christmas actually'!!!!

I have a magnetic white board in kitchen where I list dates of food, and if anything is looking like it's not going to be used I pop it on olio and someone usually wants it

Not even inards of peppers are wasted in our house lol. Guinea pigs

We occasionally throw bits away, but only because my daughter's disabilities mean that sometimes she just cannot eat what has been bought. However generally we freeze, or I eat it. We actively avoid waste as far as we can and like PPs plan, weight etc.

Just came across this old thread about leftovers. Such weird attitudes on display.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3466242-to-not-understand-people-that-dont-eat-leftovers?page=1

Do you ever play freezer roulette? I do when the label falls off

Also to be clear - this is not purely a cost issue although reducing the amount spent on food is obviously a huge priority for many. Even if you're not struggling, wasting food is literally throwing money in the bin.

Just curious if people's attitudes have changed with cost of living. Are those who wouldn't contemplate left overs now digging in?

I've got a weakened immune system and I'll eat any old shite as long as it's been heated to the core temperature sun, either micro-nuked or boiled/roasted.

OH's main failing is he'll 'heat' leftovers in the microwave and they're invariably insipidly lukewarm. It's like an anti-superpower. I think I'm headed for the patio ...

I waste almost nothing. Last week, one satsuma that had turned green.

I meal plan every week.
Freeze any leftovers or eat them for lunch the following day
Regularly make veggie soup which uses up any slightly wilted veg.
Split multipacks of chicken or pork and freeze them separately
Freeze most food and take something out for supper each morning
Buy 4 pints of milk, decant into pint containers and freeze.

Plus I have an endlessly hungry teen ds so the chances of anything going uneaten is low. 😀

I abhor food waste.

Family members with dementia hide or dispose of food everywhere. Behind curtains, in curtain linings, down the sides of a seat, in a cushion, under a bed…

I've had to accept that I can't control the behaviour of other people and that other people can't necessarily control their own behaviour.

I don't do food waste within my area of control. Outside that, without constantly monitoring someone in a way that would be way beyond intrusive, I have to live with it.

I easily throw away that a year because DH won’t fancy what’s in the fridge and get himself a takeout instead. It drives me insane.