Come on, be honest: what ends up languishing at the back of your fridge at the end of the week? 'Fess up about your most neglected foodstuffs to Unilever Project Sunlight - and be in with a chance to win £250 NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

Most of us make an effort to plan our shop and minimise food waste, but even with the best will in the world, all too often we end up with items left over - and the people from the Unilever Project Sunlight would like to know which are your repeat waste offenders. Is there a fruit that always gathers mould at the bottom of the bowl? Or what about the last spoonful of pasta sauce that you swore you'd use up? Are you afflicted by unconsumed anchovies? Stressed out by surplus celery?

Please share what - despite your best efforts - you find yourself regularly binning on kitchen clean out day. And just to even things up a bit, why not let us know which foods you'd rate as your enduring heroes: the ones that could sit happily on your shelves and emerge perfectly edible even in the event of a nuclear apocalypse ...

Add your comment to the thread and you'll be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a a £250 voucher for the store of their choice.

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thanks and good luck
MNHQ

Grapes.
Leftover cooked rice/potatoes.
Lemons where I have grated off the zest but had no use for the juice, or half lemons where only half a lemon was needed.

Plain yogurt. I always mean to serve fruit and yogurt, but to be honest, I prefer biscuits.
And i always have half a neglected pepper that has gone a bit gooey.

Half a jar of pesto
One third cucumber
Half a bag of iceberg lettuce
Three tiny mushrooms
Ball of mozzarella
A ready meal bought for dh as an emergency

Creme fraiche - use a dollop for a recipe and chuck the rest!

Hummus. Always in the clearance section, and I always think I'll be healthy for once, and I never am.

It just sits reproachfully in the fridge until I can't stand looking at it any more and I throw it away.

Half a lemon, half a pack of chillies, half a tub of fromage frais (spot a pattern?); they are things that I buy for a recipe and only need half of, but then can't think of another recipe for the rest.

Salad bags. A lot of the time they dont even get opened, never mind fully used

Chicken carcass - "for stock" she says, then leaves it in the fridge untouched for a month...

Half a cucumber.
I've even tried just buying half a cucumber, but somehow I still end up with the same amount sat oozing in the vegetable chiller bit.

Lettuce. I buy a whole lettuce thinking healthy & that's the cheap way but don't really like it in sandwiches & they don't keep long anyway. Should really only buy water cress or spinach as always chuck those into curry if not eaten quickly.

Chorizo stays forever and never seems to go off. Use in tomato sauce for pasta when in a hurry.

Lemons and onions seem to last for ages! They are brilliant and then when they really do get near the end of their best, lemon zest and juice can be frozen (or slice and freeze to use as alternatives to ice cubes in water and drinks).

Raspberries just go bad too quickly - even before i can freeze them so that's the one thing that does go bad in my fridge. Blueberries too sometimes just because they do have a short shelf life.

The only thing left in my fridge is half a bag of stir fry veg.

There's only two of us so using all of it in a Chinese curry wasn't going to happen.

Oh and Marie Rose sauce. I don't even know why I bought it. I used it once

spinach
dips
oranges

Cream cheese (even the small tubs are too big IMO). And other things that are meant to be consumed within three days of opening and never are (juices etc).
Sometimes yoghurts - we decide we all have the same favourite and soon run out, next time we buy it, nobody's bothered anymore

Fridge beans never turn out well, ever. Neither do turnips or parsnips. I have nightmares about manky carrots and furry spaghetti sauce.

1/4 of a cucumber and 1/8 spinach at bottom of bag

Hummus or dips and natural yoghurt. Once opened, they usually need to be consumed within 3 days. Grapes go fluffy/mouldy too if in the fridge for more than 5 days, i find. Cartons of fruit juice.

I find that cheese, if well wrapped, lasts more than a week.
I keep apples and pears in the fridge - they can last up to 1.5 weeks, more maybe.

Pesto keeps well in fridge - we use sacla and use up to 3 weeks after opening but we look v. carefully for any fluffy mould

The slimy end of a cucumber. A slimy bit of pepper. And usually a slimy chunk of lettuce. Bit of a theme really!

I make a lot of lettuce soup with sad abandoned lettuces in the winter as dh will buy one for sandwiches

I normally end up with a theirs of a tin of tomatoes or half a tin of pineapple rings. But nothing in the meal planner to use them in and a bag to think of something to cook with them. Well unless I have pasta at lunch time.

I really resent having to be the finisher of foods though

Parmesan and cooking apples last FOREVER in the fridge, and sprouts.

Definitely bags of salad. Occasionally cream, cooked meats (last few slices), tomatoes, mushrooms, half tins eg beans, sweet corn. What a waste.
Sometimes leftovers. I will eat a meal for a second day but my dc won't, however much they liked it.

I'm always throwing away pots of Philadelphia with a layer of penicillin growing on the top!
An occasional wilted chunk of lettuce and the odd 'empty' jar of mayo which has been repeatedly put back into the fridge despite its clear lack of content!

Cream - I always buy bigger than I need because it "hardly costs any more for twice as much" and then it stays in the fridge until it gets rather nasty.

Cucumber - either there appear to be none or there are 3 or 4 at least 2 of which are going to mush. No idea how that happens.

Anything in Tupperware. I start with the best of intentions to re-use that leftover mash, pasta or rice but never get around to it!

I use celery to cook with, so it never goes off. You can cook with it even when it's all bendy.

Cucumber always ends up going off. We go through a crudite spat and then don't have them for a bit - and it's off. I don't really know how to cook with cucumber can't really bung it in a stew.

Butternut Squash goes off even though it lasts for ages. I love it, and buy it and then can't be bothered to peel/ cut the darn thing.

Bags of salad. Dh supposed to put in sarnies, but if he doesn't take them for a few days...grrrrr...

Quite often grapes and blueberries. I just forget I have them as they're not in the fruit bowl.

Gazillions of pots with a few mouthfuls of leftover food in, that I can't bring myself to bin until they take on a life of their own. Chorizo seems to last ages (packet says to eat within so and so, but I make it last a month at least and not been ill).

Marmite doesn't go off. You can have it for 20 years. Likewise Lea & Perrins. And Balsamic Vinegar. Ainsley cous cous is a great staple and lots of freezer food, fish and meat. I never ever throw meat or fish out as I keep it in the freezer. Cake stuff also.

We never have enough bananas or apples and eggs or butter.

Leftovers. I mean to use them somehow but never manage it.

Also hummus and whatever has fallen victim to my children's fickle tastes where a previous favourite and mealtime staple is suddenly considered poison.

Lettuce , I try and buy little gems now so there is less waste. Think I still buy it as I can't accept summers over and salads and barbecues are done for the year.

Also cream cheese , occasionally use a bit in cooking then the rest grows a lovely bit of green mould over it.