What can be done to reduce food waste?

moneyistooshorttomention

PasturesNew wrote: »

The only way to reduce it would be for all food to be sold in plain white packages, so no tempting "impulse buys".... and for people to be rationed to a certain £ value, or a weight of food.

You can't stop people being people - whatever sort they are.

Remove the incentive - by white packaging.
Remove the "free for all" - by rationing.

Possibly to the plain white packaging.

But I would have to - strongly - disagree with any remotest suggestion of rationing obviously.

Teaching children some more "practical" level skills might possibly be useful - but clearly not sex-specific in the 21st century and giving children of both sexes the free choice as to whether to do traditional "male" skills or traditional "female" skills or spend that time on more academic learning. It is no longer appropriate obviously to decide what a child learns based on the sex its body is.

fussypensioner

Its obvious, just buy what you need and no more.

Have you every watched Eat Well for Less, the amount of food people buy and then throw away is criminal.

culpepper

1. Don't have such huge supermarket trolleys.
I think people mentally tell themselves to buy a trolley full.

2. When things reach the 'best before' date make it illegal for the shops to throw them away ..instead they must set aside an area that is for free goods and allow anyone to take them. They could limit the amount per customer and keep count by making them still need to be scanned and thus eliminate chancers who would grab everything and resell.

3. Make it illegal to bleach skips outside of supermarkets. allow dumpster divers to see if they can use the contents. Often the use by date is none sense but if their policy is to throw away by the time it is reached then at least let people come and see if anything is still useful and rather than worry about litigation just put up a big sign saying all food has reached its use by and anything taken and consumed is at the finders own risk.

4. Stop the supermarkets insisting on size and shape of fruit and veg so the farmers can still sell them the wonky veg and we can still buy them to help the farmers.

5. I seem to remember that Pig farmers were given the left overs from school dinners to feed the livestock. Could that not be readopted?

6. Have public information leaflets distributed describing what should and shouldn't be refrigerated. What can be frozen etc. How to use every part of a chicken, How to store food to keep out damp,insects etc.....
The war time leaflets must have educated so many about this once before.

Shropshirelass

We are pensioners, living on a total income that is much less than the national average wage. We would appreciate if basic loose fruit and vegetables were not priced higher than large prepackaged bags. I'm thinking especially of potatoes here, often only available in large packs often too heavy for me to lift.

I find it useful to freeze bread in separate packs of four slices, it defrosts quickly for use, avoids bread going stale.

Soaps on TV are such an amazing opportunity to educate people, how about showing some sensible useful habits instead of constantly showing characters celebrating minor occasions with a takeaway or bottle of champagne or round of drinks. No drama I guess! That would be the challenge.

GreyQueen

I was looking at carrots a couple of days ago. I eat carrots daily. I noticed that a kilo bag had a price per kilo which was only two-thirds of loose carrots.

I have to be price sensitive due to low income, and I eat almost exclusively fresh veggies and a small amount of meat or fish. To avoid waste, I end up shopping every 2-3 days. But it still requires close attention to fridge contents so that I buy and start eating a new bag of carrots or a new crown of celery the same day. I would much rather buy what I needed loose if I wasn't shooting a hole in my purse by doing so.

I do use my freezer for efficiency, such a buying a large head of broccoli, cutting it up and freezing two thirds of it, and the diced stem (to use in a soup) whilst eating one portion's worth on day of purchase.

A freezer, if one has one, can be a godsend if used efficiently and not as a mere place to stash processed unhealthy rubbish.

Owain_Moneysaver

If food was a lot more expensive then people wouldn't waste so much.

The wastage is a side effect of food being much cheaper than it has ever been.

Same with mobile phones, computers, tellies, furniture, and all the other stuff that goes to the tip after it's been owned for six months.

tiredwithtwins

Islandmaid wrote: »

Start teaching kids Home Economics in schools, how to budget, shop, cook actual meals not just cheese straws, and that food does not explode the moment it reaches its sell by date.

My 20 yo DD phone to ask if it would be okay to cook some chicken breast as the use by date was that days - I obviously failed to get through to her previously :mad: sniff it girl :rotfl:

Edit: ban BOGOF,s too - tell supermarkets we want cheaper basics - not 20 packs of biscuits for £1 or 2 massive bags of salad for the price of 1, of which most will end up in the bin... Also CHARGE MANUFACTURERS/FAST FOOD RETAILERS additional tax on the packaging they BUY, it may force them to reduce packaging - why are bananas put in plastic bags - they come in their own wrappers! For example.

pretty much what I was going to say!!
the other thing would be to put the consumer and not the share holder first ... but I guess that will never happen!!

june89

I agree with everyone saying to stop with the "perfect" produce although it isn't the supermarkets making these rules up, it's (sadly) legislation. Either way, I really don't need my apples to be 55-65mm to consider them edible!

Also agree that packaged items should never be cheaper by weight than their loose counterparts, and loose/bulk bin options should be available on all suitable goods - not limited to a select range of produce. This would enable consumers to buy exactly the amount they need and also have the added bonus of less packaging being sent to landfill.

[Deleted User]

I wrap celery in tin foil as well as cabbage and it keeps perfectly for as long as I can eat it Being on my own a head of celery takes around a couple of weeks in salads unless I turn what remains into celery soup.As said before nowt gets wasted in my house :):) I store it at the bottom of the fridge

freyasmum

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Further thought:

- Couldnt communal type kitchens (eg school kitchens? some church halls have decent size kitchens?) be advertised as running a free session or two for learning to cook in a waste-saving way?

Waste food could be collected from whoever-wishes-to-donate (eg supermarkets being the basic suppliers) and put in this kitchen. A suitable person/people there instructing anyone attending the course (which would be free obviously). The course to consist of showing people how to think up/prepare food from the random ingredients and they all share lunch from what they have produced part way through the day and then take home the rest of the food they personally have made with them for dinner (and take any leftover ingredients they wish to as well).

That would be my basic idea for a course.

But there could be a second course specifically on food preserving - bottling, low-cost ways of drying food, etc.

Unfortunately, the success of this venture would be dependent upon the relevant people actually attending this course.

I remember quite a few years ago, one of the organisations where I lived offered classes to young mums, to teach them how to feed their children cheaply and nutritiously. The only people who signed up to the course were OAPs, who could already cook but wanted a little time out of the house, and my mum (trained chef). There wasn't one young, single mum in the class.

And then again, the nursery my daughter attended offered a free course on cooking. I think only 3 people took the offer up (me being one of them - and already a competent cook).

It's a sad fact that many people just aren't interested these days, and unfortunately we have a few generations who were never shown how to cook and believe that it is very difficult, so we need to catch them as early as possible. I agree that teaching people how to cook in schools, where it is compulsory and they don't have the choice whether or not to take themselves out for a class or two, is the way forward.

Teach them how to plan what they need, how to use up what they've got.
Tell them that any veggies left in the fridge at the end of the week will blend into a delicious soup.
Mushroom stalks taste EXACTLY the same as the heads, and you'll never know the difference when they're cooked.
Broccoli stalks are edible!
How best to store the food that they buy.


Stop supermarkets and their silly offers which make people buy more than they need, and offer sensible pricing normally.