Teetering on the brink

BestnamesRgone

Your olio volunteer is definitely being rather naughty offloading so many salad bags onto you! I used to collect from T*sc0 and the amount of waste is shocking, there would usually be 4 or 5 huge sackfuls of food every day, a large proportion of which was bread and the dreaded salad bags which rarely got requested. At least your guinea pigs get the benefit of the salad leaves! 

Cherryfudge

That's a very green haul! If ever your have too much, you could see if a pet shop or animal shelter would accept a donation. Also, if you aren't doing this already, you could cut the bottom slice off the lettuce stems and stand them in water (refresh frequently) to help them keep longer.

It's such a shame about so much food going to waste.

Sorry to hear about the van needing help. I hope it doesn't stretch the budget too much.

Hold on to the fact you have put the brakes on and are making progress.

BestnamesRgone

Great idea in theory about sharing with animal shelters Cherry, unfortunately salad bags tend to be use by items (rather than best before) which means it’s actually (frustratingly) illegal to donate the following day. 

Cherryfudge

BestnamesRgone said:

Great idea in theory about sharing with animal shelters Cherry, unfortunately salad bags tend to be use by items (rather than best before) which means it’s actually (frustratingly) illegal to donate the following day. 

Ah, I hadn't thought of that. Definitely don't want to give any animals food poisoning.

EatingBeans

Yes I can confirm all of that green does have use by dates rather than best before but I get a mixture of dates on the bags even though I pick up on the same day. Honestly though, I just use my common sense and own senses to judge if the contents are still edible. The fruit pots are almost always fit for the compost bin as soon as they arrive even though technically they are still in date. The mixed leaf salad tends to follow quickly if not eaten in a day or two but the whole lettuces I am happy to keep longer. As for whole carrots… we have only just finished the last of the massive haul we collected weeks ago. They’ve been in the fridge since we got them and they are still nice and firm, so we are eating them while the guineas get the lettuce. I am not worried about the exact dates tbh. The guineas get a lot of choice so are not afraid to leave anything not deemed up to their standard and I just remove anything they don’t eat and add fresh every day. I’ve never made a guinea ill from it yet and I’ve been feeding them veggie scraps like that since my first guineas 30 years ago (back then I used to visit the greengrocers and ask for scraps). My oldest guinea lived till she was pts at aged 12 so I can’t be going too wrong. It’s a pity that the rules are so strict around use by dates and not sending to animal shelters but I guess they are just worried about their reputations if it went wrong.

ellenvan

I totally agree if you sniff something it's fine to use. Little gem lettuce keep for ages in our house. Common sense was all that was used years ago.
Carrot's don't come out of the ground with use by dates on.

Cherryfudge

I suspect it's the items that are chopped that have use by dates: the cut edges soon break down to mush. That said, I've no lettuce to check against. My husband gets fed up with me putting vegetables root-end down in water but I know if roots form it's still fresh enough to eat, as well as crisper.