how much food do you through out every week

COOLTRIKERCHICK

up until i found this site, and refined my shopping, i used to throw out quite a bit of food....the impulse food like if i was THINKING of going on a diet, or trying a new product ....buying loads of fruit etc.. and then by the time i would go and use it...it had gone off or the sell buy had gone....or it was only half eaten.....you know what i am trying to say .....

but even now with all good intentions on my shopping....i still find i am throwing stuff out....ok most of it is going to my chickens, so its not totally wasted.......typical example is loafs of bread.....when it come to the end of the loaf... we all automatically open another one, and there's maybe one slice and a crust left....or maybe i have bought say more fruit ..bananas....i allways got them here as they act as a fast food in our house...rather than the kids go to the nicey cuboard....and by the next day or two the briuses have come out shown up on then, and then the kids will not eat them....

i have been totally inspired this week by moggins household manual thread...if you havent read it ....take a look ....and i have done a folder ..i am also going to do a section with what i actually waste each week and why it was wasted...so maybe that will highlight the area where i am going wrong...
i used to shop once a week,, but now its gone to two smaller shops a week...i used to do an internet shop, but that was even worse,,, as i would totally just put junk food in, and that was eaten before the proper food.. so to speak, plus the sell by,s were very short..

has or is this happening to anyone else..... and any suggestions..:rolleyes:

COOLTRIKERCHICK

oops the heading is ment to be throw out....kids just gone to school so still in a fluster...

tanith

I too have managed to cut down my shopping bill because of this site.. but also I to buy fruit that doesn't get eaten, this week a whole punnet of plums that were too sour to eat some easy peel oranges I thought would be a healthy snack that are now shriveling in the bowl.. also have a bowl of cooked spuds in the fridge because I cooked too many I was going to fry them but now they are starting to go black.. YUK Half a melon thats still in the fridge but will probabely get thrown out today . I don't know what the answer is because I feel I have to buy some fruit for healthy eating reasons and we don't have all the sugary and salty snacks we used to have but some of it gets wasted every week.. I do find that an iceberg lettuce will last longer than a week , I just slice a bit off as needed and wash that bit....

I suppose at the end of the day we all need fruit and veg and a little bit wasted is surely better than wolfing down all that sugar salt and fat I used to snack on...

brokenwings

i had a bit of a throw out yesterday - bamboo shoots, water chestnuts and rices that would never get eaten - they all went to the hens and ducks ( and yes they wer ein the cupboard as i was THINKING of going on some kind of diet when i bought them lol )

other than that really all that gets thrown out of our house is the potato and veg peels or scrapings ( and these go to the hens )

used to throw out a lot more but im a very non picky eater and tend to eat things like the last crust of bread, the bruised banana noone else wil touch etc ( have a nice recipe for banana cake that you can mash the bruised ones into if youre inclined )

old potatoes and veg get used to make bubble and squeak which has been eaten with bacon for breccy, in a sandwich for lunch and with sausages or a chop for dinner

old bread crusts ( if i dont eat them ) get made into crumbs and frozen

everything possible gets either frozen or cooked and then frozen very quickly if it looks like it might get wasted otherwise

se999

Thought you might be interested in this article from last years Guardian

http://society.guardian.co.uk/environment/news/0,14129,1460299,00.html

There was an newspaper article a few years ago that made me stop & reassess what I did.

We swapped to having serving dishes on the tables, so leftovers could be utilised in other meals.

I always check the fridge before going shopping again to make sure I really needed to get new items, it also made the fridge emptier so you could spot things in it. I'd move things to the front if they needed using up quickly.

The other thing was with tinned and packaged goods, I'd go through the cupboards about once a month for packaged goods (less freq. for tins) and move anything that needed to a special spot in the kitchen for using up.

Going through the depths of the freezer every so often is a good idea too. Again a use it quick section helped me.

The other thing is shopping lists, and double check before going shopping that you've not already got it or an alternative if you change your menu.

This reduced food thrown out for me anyway.

Good luck with your wastage action plan.

rchddap1

Actually throw away very little. We go shopping every 2 weeks and do our best not to 'top up shop' in between. So we eat what we have around the house. If we ain't got it we don't eat it. Where at all possible we freeze things. The thing I'm terrible for is buying lots of eggs intending to do some baking....and then not.

ziggy2004

I am getting a lot better and rarely throw anything out now i try and make something else that'll freeze or keep if something threatens to go off. eg bananabread with brown babnanas a smoothie or compote with fruit a potatoesalad for lunch with leftover potatoes, vegtable soup with veg.

sometimes I just run out of time though but I really hate throwing food out

X Anne

Heth_2

We rarely throw anything out except bread, when it has gone stale. We tend to only buy bread for sandwiches for lunch, and if only one of us is having sandwiches then often we can't get through the loaf before it goes stale. Yes, we could freeze it, or freeze the sandwiches, but to be honest I don't find this very appealing. I would rather save money by making a nice lunch that I will eat, than having a stale or soggy sandwich that I will throw away at work because I don't fancy it, and then spend 3 quid on a lunch a will eat.
We never throw away meat/fish because we freeze alot of the stuff we buy (tend to get it when reduced).

thriftlady_2

I'm guilty of buying too much rather than of throwing it out.I am actually quite good at using up stuff - brown bananas get frozen for muffins/bread,crusts get cubed and frozen for croutons etc.

My problem is,like others have said buying too much fruit.Obviously we want to be healthy and make sure our kids eat their 5 portions,but how much do you actually need to buy?

For 5 of us I buy about 3 4lb bags of apples from the farmshop ,a couple of large punnets of strawberries, grapes and maybe something like a melon or a pineapple every week.I also always have fruit juice ,dried fruit and tinned fruit on hand.

But, I could manage on 35 apples(!) -1 a day for each of us,a handful of raisins each and a serving of juice or tinned fruit(peaches,pineapple etc).That would be 3 servings of fruit and with some tomatoes and salad at lunch and a serving of carrots and peas for tea I've hit 6 portions without buying a huge variety of stuff and without trying too hard.

Obviously variety is good,so I could replace some apples with seasonal things like berries and vary the veg.But the truth is you don't need lots of different things every week.

Planning is the key;)

Gingham_Ribbon

I used to do a supermarket shop every week and with good intentions stock up of fresh food that would mostly end up in the bin as I was too tired to cook when I got in from work.

Now I go to the supermarket every couple of weeks at most, get an organic delivery in and know how to cook so I hardly ever waste food. Although I also have much more time since I gave up teaching so it's much easier.

I learned how to organise it through this board and the flylady website and, although I'm not organised in any other way, the cooking and shopping seems to run fairly smoothly most of the time but it took a LONG time to get there.

mamaoba

Here's how I use up fruit before it goes off.

1 cup flour
1/4 cup veg oil (I use sunflower)
1 cup milk/water/fruitjuice (old oranges get squeezed;) )
1/2 cup sugar (I store a vanilla pod in my sugar to add flavour)
1 egg
2 cups fruit (you can use ANY fruit - bananas, apples, berries etc except citrus)
pinch of cinnamon
1 egg

Shove all ingredients in bowl and mix quickly to form a lumpy batter (don't over mix). Pop into fairy/muffin tins. bake for approx 25 mins at Gas 4-5 till golden. makes a dozen cakes. They should be golden brown when done. If it's a "wet fruit" (berries and some soft fruit like peaches) you may need to add 10 mins to the baking time.

Kids love em. I normally do this on Saturday morning to use up the last of the week's fruit before going shopping for fresh. Cos I use leftovers it's always a different combi of fruit.

If it's citrus left over use the juice instead of milk and the rinds to make up your fruit ration.

If no fresh fruit in the house any dried fruit is fine (cranberry and apricot is yummy and dried apricots are an excellent source of iron).

Or as it's summer chop up non-perfect fruit and bung it in a jelly for the kids - again they are getting their 5 a day but think it's a special treat (You can make jelly using vegegel if you want to avoid gelatine for religious or ethical reasons).

Pies are also nice in the winter.

For bananas I normally make a banana bread with a cup of walnuts for the omega 3.