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

Sliced bread - I buy it for toasted cheese sandwiches for dd2 & her friends before sports training - can be eaten in the car or while doing their prep & no one else eats it all week. But it's a cheap easy meal which works with tomatoes & cucumber when they're in a rush.

Coleslaw, cream and yogurt all seem to fester in my fridge.

Jam lasts for ages and is always good when hunger pangs strike and there is nothing else to eat.

I find courgettes tend to get forgotten about. Lettuce, I buy it use a bit and then have to throw it away as I didn't get around to using the rest up.

Jars of tomato sauce also tend to go off. I use half, plan to use the other half in a recipe, get busy with work and then make something else so it also gets thrown in the bin because it has gone off.

Jam. We so rarely eat it, but when we do want some, it has to be a new jar because the old one has gone mouldy. But do we throw away the mouldy one? No. DH wants to save it to make wasp traps for the summer...

Also, vegetables that appear in the fridge when my mum or MIL visit. They are both lovely and insist on cooking dinner at some point during a visit, but we do end up with a random assortment of veg that I don't know what to do with.

Veg from my veg box, especially cabbages - I can use a few leaves but not the whole thing!

Also things like mint sauce or mango chutney that only go with one type of food - we eat these things about once a year so after about eight months they get chucked.

Two tiny bags of fresh uncooked pasta, lovingly sealed with klippits. Been in there a couple of weeks now. And some redcurrant jelly from last Christmas. I'm a proper slattern, daren't tell you all about the beef joint in the freezer that might be a bit old now and I'm too scared to take it out cos it might grow legs and run off mooing

Cucumber. I'm not even sure what the end of a cucumber tastes like, might contain gold for all I know as they never get finished.

Refuse to buy half a cucumber as they're not half the price of a full one (& have more packaging) but always buy a cucumber, which may be mostly because ds1 pronounces it 'cumbumder'.

Generally only things that have 3 day from opening stamped on them. Eg cream cheese pate. I always thing I won't open them until I know I'll eat it, then the date gets close and I end up opening and not finishing it. Oh and often a lone yoghurt lurking at the back.

Natural yogurt. I have super good intentions of using it but there is always a mouldy crust by the time I get round to it.

I found a jar of redcurrant jelly hiding behind some other stuff last week. Only 3 years out of date!

Lettuce and peppers! We've got no excuse either, if we were more organised we could feed leftovers to the chickens...

Half used tubs of any sauce be it a bolognaise or pasta sauce, I usually have to throw them out with a fine coating of green on top.

and cream cheese. Its gets used once or twice ,and then I find it all sad and separated a few weeks later at the back of the fridge.

And half an onion. I don't know why I bother putting a half an onion back in the fridge, as I know I will have to throw it out week(s) later

Unfortunately our fridge also has the habit of freezing anything that is pushed up against the back of it, I have had to throw out a few iced carrots and lettuce.

Usually have a shrivelled up cucumber and pepper it goes off so quick all squishy, potatoes i still have some in my fridge from August, they are fine think this is one of those things that lasts forever as long as they are dry cold and dark.
The bit of cream in the pot or yoghurt that was bought and forgotten about. Ready made pastry i forget to check the use by date and never manage to freeze it in time or use it.
Tomatoes in the summer i grow them and end up with a glut as i grow too may, i cook them up to put them in jars and put them in the fridge but never get round to it so it ends up growing a nice green fury hat. :(

Lettuce, the rest of the tin of corn that doesn't go on tuna mayo butties, potatoes, carrots....

...but never wine. Never ever wine.

usually it,s Mayonaise & salad dressings!:(
Have to admit I usually pretty good apart from those.
Now the back of the food cupboard is a different matter....top shelf at the back often ends up well out of date & thrown out !!!!

Houmous ! I love it but always forget that it is there so invariably end up chucking it out. It doesn't freeze very well, I shall have to have a go at making my own

Spring onions. Every time I buy them. But damn do they last a long time!

At the moment it's feta cheese and a jar of tapenade. I was inspired to make Dakos after a week in Crete, but the feta I can buy here doesn't resemble the Greek version so it's all waiting for some inspiration. It's been waiting for 2 months now.

natural yogurt - it seems so ESSENTIAL in the shop and then just develops a lovely green mould in my fridge!

• Fresh herbs (wish they came in smaller - packs)
• Lemons

And baked goods is the other thing, though not a fridge item. Like I bought a pack of hot cross bunsbuns last weekend, all but one were eaten which is now sitting moulidly on the shelf...

Very little languishes in our fridge as we tend to check what is in there and use things. Fromage frais we buy for DC can get past dates as she has phases of wanting them and then not.

Luckily my family are pretty good at eating things up, but I often find half packets of pate, cream cheese, and ham with a furry green decoration. Coleslaw also develops a nasty 'fizz' when half of the pot has been consumed. Unfinished cartons of cream seem to turn sour pretty quickly soon. (Must remember to pour more on my pud). In the fruit bowl, bananas are the worst offender, turning brown overnight. Luckily I have a good toffee and banana muffin recipe for these.
Jam, marmalade and jars of olives seem to survive pretty well.

small pots of cream

humous

peppers left in veg drawer

Things I throw out: citrus fruit - I seem to over stock on lemons and limes as they are always in need for dishes we cook at home but having loads in the fridge means some always get chucked; decent quality soft or washed rind cheese - I'll buy it as a night treat, eat it that day and then forget about it (hence buying far less now); spring onions (they go off quick)

Enduring foods: anything in a tin, but the tins of fish (sardines, anchovies) are the ones that seem to stick around longest

Spring onions always end up shriveled and sad. Or they get frozen on to the back wall of the fridge!