Zero food waste

ard123en

Not matter how much I try we always seem to put food in the bin at the end of the week.

Only plus is any rotten veg goes to compose

Has managed to not waste food for a whole week if so what's your secret

[Deleted User]

I manage to go the whole year without wasting food:
1) Don't buy what you can't eat.
2) Don't cook what you can't eat.

sevenhills

Ignore use by dates, the are pointless.

Martyn1981

Everyone might already do this, but we don't peel things like potatoes, carrots etc, so that reduces waste, gives you more food for your money, and I think tastes better.

Merlin139

jack_pott wrote: »

I manage to go the whole year without wasting food:
1) Don't buy what you can't eat.
2) Don't cook what you can't eat.

I guess you never buy a fresh Pineapple then! Anyone who can eat a Pineapple without throwing any of it away is a better person than me.

We have eaten 6 in the last week and the pile or off cuts is massive!

pandora205

I waste very little by:

• using the freezer, e.g. for bread, spare milk, grated cheese
• putting out spare meals and freezing or keeping in the fridge
• basing meals around food that needs to be used up, particularly salad and other veg
• making a large pot of soup at the end of the week (for lunches)
• eating lots of fruit and veg generally

Currently, I've a large amount of veg so after making soup, I'm cooking a veggie curry (adding chickpeas for protein and making cauliflower rice), cutting up veg for dips (home made hummus), spiralising courgettes and carrots to serve with roasted pepper sauce, etc. The soup was made from: onions, celery, garlic, cauliflower (including stalks and leaves), courgettes, butternut squash, home made tomato and pepper sauce, tin of tomatoes, stock cubes and finally the remnants of last weeks salad - spinach, rocket and watercress. I'll take it to work for lunch most days and we'll have a few bowls over the weekend.

I try to avoid thinking 'what do I fancy having tonight' rather than cooking what I have. I also tend to bulk cook at the weekends, which means it's easy during the week.

I also avoid shopping when I don't need to as it is easy to be tempted by special offers and reductions, particularly Aldi super six.

maisie_cat

We don't waste much, it's mostly peelings & skins. Never take any notice of use by and be unafraid to use a soft carrot in a soup. The bin currently has the remaining chicken carcass after stock making, tea bags, coffee grounds, sweet potato & red onion peel. We moved over to frozen veg for many items as it's much easier to manage usage and it's fresher.
Most waste goes into the compost in the summer, but they are full so going in the food waste bin. I get very annoyed with myself if I waste good food. This time of year many things are slow cook one pot items and frankly any old thing can be added to a recipe !

[Deleted User]

Merlin139 wrote: »

I guess you never buy a fresh Pineapple then! Anyone who can eat a Pineapple without throwing any of it away is a better person than me.

We have eaten 6 in the last week and the pile or off cuts is massive!

I eat lots of pineapple, it's one of my favourites. What are you counting as food waste, inedible peelings? You'd have to count packets and jars as food waste too on that basis.

jimjames

We have zero food waste. Any veg peelings go to the rabbit, any non rabbit bits go to chickens. Anything inedible goes to compost or in our council recycling bin.

Left over food is used for next meal, so we really don't have much to throw away

Katiehound

No compost bin here- garden too small and when I had one it took 2 years to rot down! Decided I'd rather have a recycling bin- not room for both!

Very little goes in my bin- my two dogs get anything that's leftover (hardly anything ) as long as it is safe for them (eg no onion skins!!) and they love kale stems, cauliflower ribs and apple peel!

Any citrus peel is saved for my neighbour who dries it, grinds it and sprinkles it all over her beautifully crumbly garden soil to keep the countless cats at bay!

I think this month 1/2 bag of rocket got thrown- it got to the back of the fridge and went...... smelly & slimy!!

Ben84

I go weeks, sometimes months between throwing food out. The thing that catches me out is usually either being ill and not eating much, or some big stressful life thing making me stressed and not eating as much. Otherwise, it's ok.

I plan ahead what to cook for a few days, and shop couple of times a week so I'm buying and using it pretty quickly. As a rule, I almost always cook with the oldest things I have first. I'm also a bit lazy about shopping, I'll try to make something with whatever I have around before buying more food. If there's any left over items near the end of the week, I'll make soup or curry, these two recipes use up a lot of vegetables quite easily and make something good to eat.

I'm not counting peelings and stuff as food waste. Who eats a banana peel or the top of a pineapple!