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 ...

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thanks and good luck
MNHQ

I'm organised enough to never throw unopened stuff out, it's always remnants in packs.

Things like leftover cream, mozzarella, celery, fresh herbs, old potatoes, ham slices and chillies seem to get thrown away quite regularly.

That's awful. I hate waste. I'm going to try and do better.

Lettuce and celery I'm afraid. I buy them with the best of intentions and then somehow never quite get round to eating them. Unappetising on their own, but I do like them in salads (when I can be bothered to make them).

Staple essentials in this household are:
pesto - from our local market. Keeps for ages and brightens up loads of food - chicken, salmon, tomato & mozzarella salad, pizza etc
Cheese! Can't do without cheese
Bacon - again for versatility. Bacon sarnies, carbonara (with pesto if no fromage frais/sour cream), pizza topping....

Not much because we have two hungry beagles with iron stomachs (any dead animal food) and a nutribullet (anything vegetable).

Hummus. I'm the only one that likes it but I get through a third of the pack and by the time I remember it's still there it's all acidic and grainy (eurgh!)

Anything else gets souped or roasted. The poster above with malingering beetroot would benefit from both these approaches.

However, I have a half-full jar of Sauerkraut that is older than most of this crop of X Factor contestants.

I seem to end up throwing out part used packs of fresh herbs. I need to get more organised and freeze them before they go all limp and icky.

I try not to waste much. Cheese gets grated and frozen, lemons are chopped and frozen for g&t , bread whizzed up and frozen (see a theme here?). But cream cheese always lurks about half used, as does sour cream and celery. Even the rabbit turns his nose at celery

Tends to be salad items - despite my best intentions we never seem to finish that whole cucumber, pack of radishes/celery/spring onions etc..

Chilies- they come in packs of 4 or so and I usually only need one

Cream cheese- use once with blinis and then it's not needed. It goes off fast too.

End bits of cheese that have gone hard.

End bits of cucumber.

Herbs in packets- recipe requires half, other half then languishes.

Things we rely on: peanut butter, marmite, nutella, eggs, bacon.

As well as the already mentioned half a natural yoghurt and cucumber that's almost liquid, for some reason I often find myself throwing out a packet of green beans. Its odd because they last so long and I look at them regularly and they are fine. Then one day (usually when I plan to use them) they are all shrivelled and limp and I have to bin them and cook something else. Then I go and buy some the next day to do the planned meal but don't fancy it and think 'ill cook it tomorrow', but don't. Then the cycle starts again!

Spring onions for me. Spend my life finding 3 or 4 at the bottom of the salad drawer. Also 1/2 lemons as DH never checks if any "open" so then find various half lemons wrapped in cling. That and celery.. Must try harder

Furry half-used tins of baked beans, when I've bought the bigger tins because they were the same price as the small ones. Yum.

Tubs of dip are regulars for the bin, too. I use them every week, but seldom need a whole tub. Sometimes I have to remember to do a purge and find several sad, damp specimens sticking to the shelves.

Food waste is such a massive bugbear of mine. Living alone, I have to be really careful about how I shop or I can end up wasting no end. Currently I notice my most frequently wasted food are:

Broccoli - if I don't eat it all within 2 days or so it tends to go yellow and unappealing. Now have resorted to buying frozen.

Bread - I don't eat that much so it can go stale before I use it. Now I just tend to freeze it or not buy it at all.

Cream - I buy it for a recipe and the rest is left to merrily moulder away.

It's bloody annoying really as I'm trying to be more economical with my spending, but if I try and do a HUGE shop at the start of the month, in order to avoids countless mini-shops, so much gets wasted.

Cream, sour cream, potatoes, bread, onions

Lettuce always goes off before I can use it all. Often throw cucumber & tomatoes too

Opened tub of humus
Dregs of a bag of salad
Fine beans that go brown and bendy

Normally good at using up most things!

I'm sure it's been mentioned already but you can freeze chillies and use them straight from the freezer.

For me, it's the last quarter of a pack of feta cheese. Every single time I buy it. The shame.

Mushrooms. DH loves them, I love them, so we buy them; ds hates them so we have to use them with caution. We're not very good at managing this. Hence, frost-burned shrivelled mushrooms lurking in the fridge.

But popcorn is a hero - always there, always ready to get made into a treat.

Lettuce

Yoghurt. DH will insist on buying a big tub, have a portion or two, and then leave it. I don't eat it, so by the time I realise what has happened, it looks like some early experiment in biological warfare.

As for the foods that never mould, I would like to thank Patum Peperium, all chutneys, and vac packed smoked mackerel. And as long as you don't take the foil off, Philadelphia will survive a nuclear holocaust.

Pears, ( in the fruit bowl)
And salad items in the fridge. Especially cucumber, at least it's in a plastic wrapper!

So I don't have to touch it that is, when it's soggy, yuck!

Tomatoes seem to be the one thing I don't get round to using and then end up throwing out as they start to get a bit yucky.
Occasionally peppers suffer the same fate.

Red cabbage. Buy it, braise half, eat for the next week because it magically expands, leave other half in fridge. For about a month. I eventually throw it away when I get bored of looking at it.

Courgettes, coleslaw and a pot of houmous which has started to fizz.

Jars of chutney and pickle. Dh, open one and finish it before starting a new one!!!