From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

Watty1 · 11 February at 9:49AM

I used dried lentils instead of tinned in a soup recipe I had and found a conversion online as my soup required a 390 gm of canned. I found that I cup of dried lentils equals one cup of canned but you need to add 2 cups of stock or water to make the 1 cup of dried equal to 1 cup of canned. I assumed that a can was about equal to a cup for this. And I use the conversion all the time now and it seems to work although sometimes a dhal might require a bit more simmering off.

teapot2 · 11 February at 10:06AM

Theres a TV advert up here about a campaign to reduce food waste, not sure if it shows in other parts of the UK. It involves talking fruit and veg in various stages of decomp and it includes that stat about the average fam throwing away £80 worth of food a month which also shocked me.

Greying_Pilgrim · 11 February at 10:18AM

I know rt - I assume that the vlogger was perhaps using WRAP statistics? They didn't give a source, but I don't think we even waste £80 of food a year, never mind a month! As yes, like you, I've always had "better things" to divert any money towards. The advantage of growing up in a poorer household was that any money I did ever get - say for Christmas or from my paper round, was saved towards something I desperately wanted - I credit that with me never having taken up smoking, as I couldn't afford cigarettes and whatever it was that I felt I wanted at the time.

I forgot to mention - LG either reads on here 😬 - or they're bored of endlessly reading about the boy wizard, as they dug out some famous5 yesterday, and requested more! I have some (chazzer shop) books set aside, and there were a few FF - I've also got an incomplete set of EB's……. 'Secret' set? The secret(?) of Spiggy Hole is one of them anyway. I think there are 5 or 6, but i have 4. I also have an incomplete set of the 'Adventure' series - 'Adventure at sea', Adventure in the mountains' etc etc. I think I'm missing 2 of those, but have read them (library books). I know EB has her faults as an author, but I'd rather LG devours the books, and is reading, than picking up some of the rubbishy 'yoof' writing that is aimed at kids. I can think of 3 sets of books that are just idiotic and delight in 'p00' jokes, or messing around, or are chaotic in nature. There's enough of that going on in school on a daily basis, we don't need LG being spoonfed it 24/7 as well - it's bad enough that I've had to sit through 3 movies involving the characters from these books 🙄

Watty - that's the thing, you can add in the cooking liquor or leave it out, depending on your recipe, can't you?

Greying X

lucielle · 11 February at 10:46AM

I made it and it was ok. Not as good as the first time when I made it with tinned lentils.
L

Greying_Pilgrim · 11 February at 11:22AM

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81879587#Comment_81879587

Oh, perhaps that is where it is from then? But gosh - "average family" - heavens to Betsy, we're nowhere near that - I'm sure. I think if I was doing that routinely - for no obvious reason, and I appreciate that not all food waste is intentional, and it's all very well me looking at it from a relatively healthy, have a smidge of knowledge how to cook, can call upon a number of places to shop etc etc - but I would have to ask DH to take over the shopping and cooking, because I wouldn't be marshalling our resources effectively. Perhaps I'm too much the other way, perhaps using every last scrap of the YS'd cauli (except the leaves, they'd mostly gone yellow - and possibly held no nutritional content?), is weird, and had I thrown it away, it would have counted as £1 food waste - the cauli cost £1? I'm not sure, I'm not sure how it's calculated. But cauli cores are sweet and nutty and count as fibre, why wouldn't you use them?

Ho hum - feeling like a square peg again…… 😂

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim · 11 February at 11:25AM

Lucielle - that's a shame - would you not make the dhal again, unless you had tinned lentils? But good on you for giving these things a go! 👍

Greying X

Jellytotts · 11 February at 12:23PM

I suppose it’s easier to get to an £80 total if you’re buying ready made/branded items rather than ingredients. When I see on some social media platforms what some people make for a meal for a family using ready made products it would be easy to see how quickly the waste could add up just from the bits left on plates.

Each to their own and whilst I can’t condone £80 of waste food, I can understand how easy it is to buy ready made/convenience foods when you’re busy/ill/disabled. My DH wouldn’t stand a chance of making half the food that we eat regularly as he doesn’t have the dexterity or stamina for cooking now. Left to his own devices he’d order shopping in with grand intentions and then find that there were too many bad days to cope with the ingredients.

Greying_Pilgrim · 11 February at 1:08PM

Jellytotts said:
….Each to their own and whilst I can’t condone £80 of waste food, I can understand how easy it is to buy ready made/convenience foods when you’re busy/ill/disabled….

Precisely what I was alluding to Jellytotts - much the same as it is possible to have much more food waste when children are in the household. I suppose 'ready made' or convenience/takeaway must be where the costs are made. I shan't tell anyone that I peeled the grot/mouldy spots off the Christmas swede as I used it. Nope, nothing to see here, move along………. 😉

But I also don't know if the figure/advert works at bringing about change. If you don't waste anything like that amount of food each month, you'll 'ignore' the ad. If you have good reason (in the shorter term), to be throwing out food, you might change, when your circumstances do - but that ad. could just serve as yet another big stick to beat you down with. And if you've no excuse, and are just wasting that food wully-nully, what's going to make you change, other than a chance to star on a TV prog, having all your shopping laid out in front of you? 🤔

The waste diversion schemes around here seem to have adopted a 'pay for it' (rather than make a donation) model. MrL has increased it's waste food box price - and "quality" and availability is definitely variable, and yes, I don't think food in the waste boxes should be pristine, but neither should it be grey with mould, and inedible. That's compost, not food waste. If we have an Olio model, I can only assume it's gone very cliquey, very quickly - if the food waste schemes are anything to go by…. Plus I'm afraid I don't want to be rambling about late at night to collect things - I realise that fault lies with me, but I'm just being honest. And YS'd things are still only 10p less than the selling price (not always, but some supermarkets must spend so much money marking food down by a fraction……). I have to say, I don't know what the answer is - as it's not like just buying 'raw' ingredients is a cheap endeavour.

I have sorted out the freezer and it's nice to be 'well stocked' with stuff. I though it would make a difference to my shopping list, but apparently not……. 🤔

Greying X