Those that throw very little food out what are your top tips?

[Chestnutx3]

I hate throwing food out but it happens. Feel slightly better when it goes on the compost but I can't afford to waste money.

I once did an experiment and our family lived on M&S meals for a week, and prepared salads/veg and I spent less and had very little wastage. I don't want to eat processed foods and we rarely do.

I use my freezer to freeze leftovers but I'm now trying to empty out the freezer of all those leftovers that aren't really a meal and never get used.

The other way I can see of doing it is eating a really limited diet of sausages, mince and pasta bakes etc... which I would hate.

Top tips please.

sit down and do a menu plan for the next 5 days then look at what you have in already and what you need to buy for the menu. Buy only that.
Also don't shop when you're hungry - that really works... saves a fortune on impulse buys and snacky crap stuff.
Shopping list and stick to it !!!

Meal plan bearing in mind how busy your week is, who will be there and what their appetites are like.

You don't have to limit your diet just plan effectively.

One of my friends had a little giggle at me today as she popped in while I was stripping a chicken carcass that had been boiling for stock. Joked that I was a true 1950's housewife. My pov is that if I'm paying £10 for a chicken then I want as many meals out of it as possible!

1. leftovers=tomorrows lunch (assuming you have a microwave)
2. Chickens! they will happily eat any leftovers, including what you have scraped off plates or from the bottom of saucepans

Also eat things which are past their 'use by' dates - not meat or fish but I do eat 3 weeks' old yoghurts.

I always always always meal plan for the next 7 days.
I double cook too, so make large lasagna, spag bol, chillis etc and freeze half.

Any left overs gets frozen as a singular meal for the following week.

Dont throw much away tbh.

have lots and lots of dc

and make them all eat the same meal

only buy what you know you will use

What are you throwing out a lot of at the moment?

I freeze a lot e.g turn wrinkly veg into soup or pasta sauce and freeze in batches, or cook and blend fruit to be added to porridge or yoghurt.

I also pay very little attention to best before dates! I do note use-by dates but mostly use my nose and eyes (and sometimes tastebuds!) to work out if something is off. We are veggie though so I suppose this is not as dangerous as if we were eating meat.

Don't get drawn in my special offers espically BOGOFs. If you have to throw half of it away, it's not such a good deal.

Meal plan and use up things with a short shelf life soon after you get them. We eat stirfry in the day or so after shopping as we like the pre-packed veg but it doesn't last. Then towards the end of the fortnight, we're on leftovers from the freezer.

good ideas for using random bits of stuff up:
england.lovefoodhatewaste.com/

really look at what goes in your bins, notice what you think you need as a staple item but ends up getting chucked!

Meal plan.
Buy standard ingredients that could become part of many different meals.
Make soup with random veg left over and any spare meat.

I did a meal plan for this week. Having looked at what we have in, I last shopped on Thursday last week.

Saturday was roast chicken, this made stock and enough chicken left overs to do a risotto on Monday. Sunday I made pizza that used up the last two mushrooms.
Today I bought some sausages and we had bangers and mash with purple sprouting and carrots.
Tomorrow we will have chicken enchilladas- I have removed some chicken from freezer, dug jar of sauce out of cupboard , I know there is red pepper in fridge and some onions in veg rack.
Thursday - Jacket spud, tinned tuna and a home made coleslaw to use up the half cabbage in veg rack, a carrot and an apple from fruit bowl.

Some wise mumsnetter once suggested that she freezes even tiny portions of leftovers, labeled, obviously, and then she occasionally has a pick and choose meal where each family member gets to choose a leftover from the freezer to defrost and eat. (a list on the outside of the freezer of what's inside also sounds like a good idea)

Put little food on your DCs plate, so that you don't have to throw out a lot leftover from their plate.

Personally, I also let DCs switch plates: the other day I made a risotto with peas and ham, DD1 picked out the veg and ham, DD3 wanted nothing but the rice, so when DD1 was done picking, I gave her plate to DD3. Not very hygienic maybe but it does avoid waste.

When I see that I shopped more than I can consume I put things in the freezer - hard cheeses, milk, butter, fruit/veg.

Have a few meals in your repertoire which can use up leftover bits lurking in the fridge e.g.

Fried rice - spring onions, carrots, peppers, sweetcorn, scraps of roast pork or chicken, eggs
Pizza - bit of onion, peppers, corn, a sliced cooked sausage, chopped meatball, chopped ham etc
Omelette - a spring onion, most veg or meat

You get the picture!

Also use those plastic takeaway containers to store single portions of leftover dishes in the freezer. Make sure they are clearly labelled and all in the same drawer. That's your stock of ready meals for when you're in a hurry and you don't all have to eat the same thing.

I also believe its not essential to buy everything ever week - for example, if you normally have a few too many yogurts each week then don't buy them one week. You'll use up what you have then if you do run out you'll find something else as a substitute (cartons of custard in the larder, ice lollies lurking in the freezer etc).

I don't really meal plan, but I seem to be pretty good at estimating how much to cook so that there are either no left overs or enough to freeze for at least a meal for the DC. I rarely weigh anything - I have been making the same things for so long that I can tell by eye how much!

So I guess my top tip is to cook the right amount!

I shop daily, taking into account what I have leftover and incorporating it into a meal over the next couple of days. This works out well for me, as I work part time and there are quite a few good shops in our (small) town. I imagine it wouldn't be so easy if I had to drive to supermarkets, or only use convenience shops.

Menu plan and cook the right amount? We only have leftovers if I plan it, eg Sunday evenings leftover roast chicken was tonights chicken pie...

Meal plan for 5 or 6 of the 7 days. There is usually leftover food that hasn't been cooked. Make the remaining meal(s) from this and anything from your larder. You can usually throw any veg or meat to make a soup, pasta or stir fry! Or else choose something from your freezer to help clear the freezer

Meal plan
Shop little and often if you can
Eat from the freezer, even if it's a bit random.

Similar to cyan - create dishes of leftovers. MrNC's speciality is 'the stir-fry', aka almost anything in the fridge fried up together. As a child we generally had day 1, meat and veg and pasta, day 2 rice and fish and veg, day 3, the lot heated up - but there;s no reason why you couldn't heat up portions separately. Or plan amounts better.

Best before dates are ignorable - flavours may lessen after a few years so may want to use more spices for example, but a decade-old cake mix was fine!

Sell-by dates are just for the shop to keep stuff under control, so ignore them. Use-by dates are a guide - if the item is unopened in the fridge, you should have at least a few days after. If opened, inspect carefully. Food that's been designed for preservation, like smoked fish or yoghurt or butter, keeps for another couple months at least.

Inspect your fridge every few days - we have a fairly large fridge so it's easy to forget stuff that gets shoved to the back, but if I look through regularly i can then plan to use stuff that needs eating soon, and avoids the green soggy bag of ick scenario!

We hardly throw any food away at all, and that's definitely because we do a meal plan for the week. We look at who will be in what nights, how many cooked meals we need, what we're going to eat each night, and then make a shopping list for the items we need.

We never impulse by at the supermarket either - we have a list of staples that need topping up, and the ingredients for the meals, and we don't buy anything on top of that, no matter how many special deals/BOGOF's they have going.

Menu plan
Check your cupboards before shopping
Shop twice a week not once a week so things never go out of date

Same as lots of others - meal plan, make a list and stick to it. Don't buy fresh stuff on offer unless it's on the list or is substituted for something on the list.

Oh, and get some chickens. They scoff up all the manky old veg bits and give you lovely eggs in return. Bargain .

We always do a meal plan and if we are cooking something that can be frozen we make enough for two full meals so half of it can be frozen.

Before doing the meal plan for the week we have a rummage in the fridge to see what needs to be used up and check what we have in the freezer. We always have at least one 'freezer' meal during the week.

Berry fruits can be made into jam or couli. For jam, use equal weight of sugar, and a little lemon juice, and boil it until it sets. To test it has set, pop a little on a saucer in the freezer for a minute, and if it wrinkles, it is ready.

For a couli, just heat with a bit of water, until the fruit has broken down. Eat with icecream, pancakes, etc. You can also make stewed apples and stone fruits in is way.

For leftover bananas, you can substitute them for eggs in a cake!

We feed any scrapings to our dog. She will eat just about anything.

And I agree with meal plans, using up what you have in the fridge or cupboard before you buy anything new. Ie, if you have something left, incorporate it into a meal, buying any extras needed for the recipe.

If you do buy bogofs, only get things you can freeze.

No dog or plans to get chickens. Not near any shops so tend to use Ocado/veg box/Sainsbury trip once a week. No decent local butchers,petrol costs means its probably best that I order it online.

I'm making a list of what is in my freezer. Already eat up my leftovers for lunch. Mainly throwing out (composting) left over veg from the veg box, bread (nobody except me likes puddings made of bread), its the odd couple of rashers of bacon, bits of cheese etc... There are only 4 of us and only me around for lunch during the week so we just don't get through it all. I probably just buy too much.

Will try to meal plan a bit better next week and stick to it. Am I the only person that finds meal planning tedious and stressful at the same time?

Meal planner here! Dont buy any more than you need for each meal. Any leftover veg at the end of the week goes into a soup or roasted veg pasta sauce.