Can we have a 'how much food do you throw away?' thread?

[captainmummy]

You know how there's lots in the papers at the mo about how much good food we throw away? I thought I never did this, but I've been more conscious of our wastebin lately, with the threat of fortnightly collectins, and I realised yesterday that I threw away a half-pack of (budget) parsnips that had gone slimy, and a packet of 6 fromage-fraises that were 2 weeks out of date. (altho I did compost them)

So what do you throw out? And why?

I have to confess to being really bad at this- I have been trying to improve recently, but it's a definite failing.

It's usually veg and salad that have gone off, and we don't have a garden for composting. They either go off before I thought they would, or I forget I ahve them til it's too late! I do plan my meals but somehow it still seems to happen.

I have a dog who is happy to eat almost anything so the only things I throw away are chicken bones. I have a compost bin for vege peelings, tea bags etc. even the dog wont eat them,

v little from fridge, loads from under table/high chair, does that count? cant imagine fromage frais staying in our fridge that long!

dh told me the other day he keeps throwing away pesto, i wondered why it was never in the fridge - i didnt realise it went off, thought it was like tom ketchup. but wont be doing that now i know, cant afford a whole jar to take out 2 teaspoons

Very little gets thrown actually. We tend to have a vague meal=plan so buy what we need mainly.

Any veg that goes past its best too quickily gets composted.

DP (and his iron constitution) ignores most sell by/use by dates so if I won't use whatever it is for me or the DC he'll eat it.

Not sure if I throw any away as such as I have food recycling scheme. It is Farking brilliant.. the only things that can't go in are bones from meat and soup/liquids...

It is fabulous

Not much - odds and ends from plates that can't be retrieved to be recycled. We eat a lot of soup so most things get used up that way. We could easily go to one rubbish collection a fortnight given how much we recycle and/or compost. We (hah! I...) vaguely mealplan and love using leftovers so not much food wise gets thrown out.

we have been fortnightly collection for a couple of years and it's great.

We have our recycling collected one week and general waste the week after.

Food is collected every week.

Works well

We throw away very little. I freeze things like bread and use for toast if it is nearly out of date. I compost fruit and veg when gone off. (things like tomatatoes that are starting to "go" can be cooked and are usually fine).

Our fridge isn't massive so I rarely find stuff out of date. Both dds and Dh are obsessed with yogurts - we run out of that type of food before it needs throwing.

When I have read articles about how much food we allegedly all throw out, I note that they include things like carrots peelings and banana skins etc. Well I might eat jacket potatoes but I don't much fancy banana skin or plum stones thank you. So when they say we all throw out 10kg per week (slight exaggeration I know) a good chunk of that will be non-edible waste, but still classed officially asfood.

Wanted to do a bit of composting, but the cost and size of the bins just makes it totally unreasonable and impractical - it would take me a month of Sundays to fill the local council offering....

Decided that from now on we are going to have a 'clear out the fridge' meal of leftovers ...

I try to recycle and am trying so hard not to throw too much away... very hard

Don't throw a single thing away. We meal plan and buy what we need. I check the fridge regularly and use whatever is in danger of going past it's best, I also save the odds & ends from a meal (the potato and handful of veg no-one ate, not from their plates!) and either use that in the next day's meal or freeze it for later use (soup or whatever).

Any bread we don't eat from our home-made loaves is made into breadcrumbs and frozen or perhaps made into a gratin topping or bread pudding or similar.

We compost tealeaves/bags, peelings etc (or feed them to the chickens), and have a Green Cone that can compost cooked food (e.g. scrapings from someone's plate) and even meat bones and carcasses.

Onepieceoflollipop, I agree, the figures do over-state the picture by including used teabags and stuff. It would be much better to concentrate on the usable food people are paying for and then throwing away.

Lollipop - I didn't know that? I also assumed they meant stuff that we just happen to leave past the best-before date. I do compost evrything I can, and recycle loads, and my bin is still full at the end of 1 week. I dont know what else I can do to reduce the amount in the bin.
Ecoworrier, I do keep leftovers, and I make a lot of soup, but still find stuff that I miss. I assumed it was that the Gov. source was on about, rather than banana skins!

Only thing thrown out is leftovers on plates- dc will like horses some days and fleas on others.

I use up what I buy other than that.

I don't compost though

I read about how they calculate food waste in a recent copy of "Good Housekeeping" magazine (which imo is usually quite reliable) but I have also seen it quoted elsewhere. I know that teabags are technically food waste but realistically most of us wouldn't try and eat them up to save waste.

I think it helps if you don't mind eating slightly odd combinations of food. So I may (random example) have one egg with whatever veg is needing to be eaten (carrot perhaps!?) Dh has to have a gluten free diet but apart from this restriction will eat anything and we have quite unusual snacks at times. So if the baby only eats some of her rice pudding I or dd1 are quite happy to polish it off. Or I might eat half a pepper like someone else might have a banana or apple.

I don't throw out much either, other than left overs on ds's plate. That is, the leftovers that I don't eat!

I do various of the things already mentioned on this thread. Stale bread whizzed into breadcrumbs, soups made with veg that might have wilted a bit etc.

I also freeze lots of leftovers, even if it's just a wee bit left. They are great for a quick lunch or tea for ds if he isn't eating same as us (allergies, so happens a fair bit) Dh really enjoys when the dinner is a mish mash of all sorts of leftovers. I think he prefers it to just one dish tbh.

Hey if you call it a "buffet" rather than a mish mash or leftovers, it sounds a lot better. and in essence is the same thing!

LOL DH will think I have lost the plot completely if I tell him it's a buffet for tea.

Will try it next time to see what the reaction is!

Not a lot these days. We have regular 'Ready Steady Cook' nights where we have to make a meal from whatever is in the fridge/cupboard even if the ingredients don't immediately appear compatible!

Lots of bread and butter pudding or scones (made with sour milk they are much better) in this house!

What a fab idea Flibberty, I'll remember that!

nothing

have greedy husband, dog, and chickens

There is never any food in our bin

Yoghurts, veg, bread, sometimes even jars and tins, flour too

nothing

ive a cat (meat)

had a hamster (sadly no longer with us,as of last week) who had some of the veg

and a compost bin for everything else

also next door has a dog so send over leftover meat for him

virtually nothing, but then i have a labrador (eats almost anything), a cat, a rabbit and chickens, and failing that lot a compost bin, But never throw away stuff like yogs/bread stuff - my four boy hoovers demolish anything edible or semi-edible within range

Another idea is to have an 'eating out at home' night now and then. Sometimes we have one portion of something left for whatever reason, not enough to make into another meal and certainly not enough to feed the family or even make a lunch for two.

So what I do is freeze that one portion, say some lasagna. Do the same over a period of time until you end up with a number of 'odd' combinations - one portion of fish pie, one of lasagna, perhaps two portions of lentil bake and one of stew.

Then the night before, offer the family a 'menu' so they can all choose what they want the following day - if there are likely to be squabbles make sure you have a larger list to choose from! Then simply defrost and reheat the individual portions, and add some bits to go with it - salad or garlic bread or whatever.

That way, everyone feels they've had a choice and it's an easy meal to dish up. And you haven't wasted anything.

I didn't know that you could compost cooked food if you have a special bin to do it

That is really good news which I'm going to look into cos we throw away loads of food every day

I'm really good at recycling in other ways - always use my council recycling bags, DC's have had cloth nappies, use all old clothes for cloths, save water etc but my DC's are such fussy eaters - I end up throwing most of what I cook away