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?

@forgotmyusername1

Awww!

I agree, most of our food "waste" goes on our guinea pigs too!

But we'd never give them the innards of a bell pepper. Did you know they can choke on the seeds?

(To be fair, I was told that when my first one was very elderly. I've just assumed they all had narrow windpipes.)

My only real food waste is bags of salad if I've forgotten to use it by the date as I have to be careful with use by dates and salad can be a dodgy one
Like I would eat beef or cheese after the date but fish and bagged salad I have to be cautious with

We don't chuck out eggs, even well out of date ones, until they've been through the 'sink or bob' test. If they sink to the bottom but are a tiny bit bouncy, they are broken, sniffed, and if they pass the sniff test made into something that needs proper cooking at a high temp.

Leftover meat / veg / pulses = soupy stews.

OOD tinned food is either eaten by us or put in the community larder, because it'll be fine for years past both the BBE and 'Use by' dates.

It would do that to me! Not only the wasted food but the unnecessary extra expense of the takeouts.

Why is salad dodgy? It's literally fresh vegetables!

I think it's because bagged salads can harbour a lot of bacteria, which can be dangerous for people who have compromised immune systems. I don't bother with them because it's hard to cook them in anything to 'cook out' (kill) the bacteria - they're meant to be eaten raw. Sometimes they even get warmed up a bit on the plate next to, eg, a bit of hot pizza or lasagne and that's even worse apparently.

Freeze all leftovers possible. It amazing how a few odds and ends make a complete meal.
Make croutons out of stale bread or use as breadcrumbs and sometimes chop into cubes and top a pasta dish with them and a bit of olive oil.
Stale croissants etc get made into puddings.
Soup with odd vegetables going out of date in fridge.
Soft tomatoes into sauce or as tomato dip for breakfast.
Most dairy odd and sods can be added to mashed potatoes. Or sauces.

Quite few years ago now, in a different job, I saw some data that indicated between a quarter and a third of all bagged salad bought ends up in the bin uneaten…!

Since living alone I do throw away more food, and particularly as spend my time in 2 places. I try and minimise wastage by freezing things like bread, and buying frozen chopped garlic, onion, ginger, chilli and soffrito. But most weeks I will throw away some milk; with one it’s so difficult to judge how much cereal for example I fancy, and a litre is either too much or not enough depending on my mood. If I buy a fresh sourdough loaf from the bakery it’ll go stale before I finish it. Sometimes I’ll slice and freeze; other times I just cut all the crusts of the loaf when it’s fresh and eat them, discarding the squidgy bit in the middle 😂

Likewise, today I have thrown away a lemon that had been hanging around too long, along with a red pepper that has gone very soft and some grapes that are past their best. So I can see how I waste around £5 a week at times. But, leftovers will generally be frozen or used for lunch / another meal.

@AutumnCrow thank you. I didn't realise this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38026695

Bagged salad can fuel the growth of food-poisoning bugs like Salmonella and make them more dangerous, a study says.
University of Leicester scientists said the moist environment combined with nutrients leaching out of chopped leaves created the perfect breeding ground for bacteria.
The researchers said they were shocked at the way the bacteria thrived, even in the fridge.
They advised people to eat bagged salad on the day they bought it.
Despite their wholesome nature, fresh green leaves and salad foods are often involved in food poisoning.

We have chickens and a dog so hardly any food waste. I also freeze all baked good leftovers like a single dry crust of bread and then make bread pudding once I have enough. I basically freeze anything that can be reused and turn practically everything else into eggs via the chickens.

When I was working I had a long commute, so I was not cooking from scratch as much, but I was still pretty good about leftovers. During lockdown I had the time to start cooking so it was easy to plan so as not to have chuckable stuff, and now I'm at home full time I cook so as to have either leftovers for the next day or freezable stuff. I find bagged salad is the worst for chucking, followed by the last of the bread, but like another poster I pretty mcuh ignore dates and happily eat stuff other people would chuck. Mould gets cut off cheese, for example.

Haven't had a dicky stomach for years ( and that was a shop bought pizza anyway).

Plus I shop every day so don't have stuff hanging around that much going off.

I didn't realise how dodgy some leftover rice can be till I read a thread on MN!

Now I make sure it goes in the fridge a.s.a.p. and doesn't sit around on a kitchen counter for hours / overnight. (The issue with rice is spores, I think, not just bacteria 😱)

I've learned a lot on here!

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

No one is doing that!

I also hate food waste and we throw virtually nothing away. I feel really bad if I do. I manage the fridge carefully to make sure nothing goes off and have a fifo mentality.

We freeze bread from the shop and only take out what we need.

I check the fridge to see what needs using first before I cook.

DH does the shopping as he enjoys it so we have lots of small shops rather than a big shop. This can make it easier to manage as fridge is never overly full.

When boys were little I would freeze leftovers but now there is never really enough so they just get used next day.

I break lots of 'rules' but haven't killed anyone (or even made them ill ) yet.

@Spencer0220 I'm immunocompromised
Technically I'm not meant to eat fresh fruit, fresh veg, raw nuts and a whole other list of things but as it's lifelong I balance the risk
And I'm not giving up the joy of fresh British strawberries!

It drives me insane, especially as I don’t eat meat, so I REALLY begrudge the expense of it going in the bin.

@Tryingtokeepgoing did you know you can freeze milk so you could put half in the freezer when you buy and take out when required🥛some people even freeze it in ice cube trays so can use in their drinks if they forgotten to take out or only use tiny amounts😀

We have a dog who has multiple allergies so I cook her wet food, I can get 5 days worth of dinners from the remains of a roast chicken and some veggies, she doesn't care if her carrots are a bit elderly. I batch cook, portion and freeze. Deep joy here if we find some braised red cabbage or cauliflower cheese in the freezer. I make iffits soup and freeze in portions for lunches. We have chickens who convert leftover veg into very tasty eggs. At the bottom of our food chain is a compost bin which helps to make our veggie patch grow. One of our favourite midweek dinners is leftover roast meat. I always make loads of gravy so slice the meat, cover well with gravy and freeze. Defrost, blast well in the microwave and do fresh veg and spuds in the airfryer. Always feels like a treat after a busy day, meat and 2 veg in 20 minutes

Didn't know that. Will have a Google

DHs brother and his family are awful for this. Will regularly over order when out and the kids never finish their large deluxe hot chocolate/burger and chips/adult portion of afternoon tea. Actually neither do tye adults. At buffets and parties will all get a plate full, pick and it and leave half before getting up to get a fresh plate full half an hour later. If we end up with left overs that would make up a meal I'll happily ask our server for a box to take away and am always happily provided with one. This seems to amuse them and there's often sly cracks at us "Ooh tellmewhen, I've not finished this ketchup sachet do you want to take that too?!". Wankers.

They are fairly affluent. Seem quite happy they can afford to waste food. It's disgusting and I silently fucking judge them every time.

The other week we had some left over chicken stir fry and veg which I froze. Had it for lunch yesterday dry fried in a pan. It was lovely, the sauce flavour had almost intensified. The veg looked a bit dull from the freezing and defrosting process but still it was soooo nice.

Sometimes often I'll deliberately over cater to get left overs

Left over pizza slices freeze well ... again just dry fry in a pan straight from the freezer. Yum

They are on the energy help Facebook site. Some families of 4 were doing 3 loads of washing a day. We do that a week