Be honest, how much food do you waste on a weekly basis? The average household throws a mountain of meals away each year and this is a crying shame, it’s a squander of food and a total misuse of money as well.
Do you really need to fritter this food away though? Take a few sensible measures and you could dramatically reduce the amount of groceries you toss into the bin, cut back on excessive fodder with our sensible and savvy guide.
Tip # 1
Buy less
Sounds obvious but how much ‘extra’ food do you buy from the supermarket when you do the weekly shop? Bet there are tons of foodie goods you toss into your basket without thinking because they are on offer or seem too hard to resist, how many of these items do you actually eat though?
Make an inventory of food items from now on, work out meals for the week and stick to your shopping list. If it’s not on the list it’s not going into the basket, set this rule and this should reduce waste.
Tip # 2
Check use by dates
Go through your cupboards and the fridge, check food items for sell by and eat by dates.
Work out what needs to be eaten first and plan meals around these foodstuffs, use stuff up before it goes bad and can’t be eaten.
Tip # 3
Start being smart with leftovers
Made too much food for a meal? Don’t throw the excess away, think of imaginative meals you can make with the produce the next day.
Bubble and squeak is a brilliant use of leftover roast potatoes, chicken is good for curries, create fishcakes with leftover salmon or toss bits of pork into a noodle dish.
There are tons of leftover recipe ideas online so get creative and turn leftovers into something tasty for a change.
Tip # 4
Freeze stuff!
Do you really need to cook all that pie? Can’t you cook half that pizza and freeze the rest?
Freezing food is a good way to reduce food wastage. Eke two meals out of one item, prepare one half and save the rest for another day, just remember to keep tabs on what you have in the cold store.
Once you get into food saving mode it’s amazing at how many ways you can think of to save fresh produce, be savvy, prevent waste and save a little money at the same time.
