Tips
&
Tricks
How to help reduce your food waste a step at a time.
Being conscious of the issue is step one. Have the intention to reduce your food waste and you will become conscious of how much you actually throw away. When you notice what it is you are throwing away most, then you can begin to tackle the bigger picture.
Consciousness is key
We buy too much
How many times have you been lured into buying something you didn’t need, for it to sit in a cupboard or fridge and go off? Special offers, half-price sales, BOGOF. We have all done it. Food Waste Action Week in March 2024 focused on ‘Choose What You’ll Use’ advocating to buy produce loose instead of in bulk. If you need 2 potatoes for dinner, buy 2 potatoes. Don’t buy a whole sack if you don’t think you’ll use it before they go off. Potatoes are the number one most wasted food product in the UK, with 25 million making their way into our bins every day!
Try using your local farmers market to buy your fruit and vegetables. They often reduce packaging, reduce waste, and supports farmers far more fairly than the supermarkets do.
Do smaller shops more often if you are noticing produce going off before you can use it. Meal planning is a great way of ensuring you buy what you need, for when you need, and the correct amount of it. It also takes away the stress and time of debating what to have for dinner each night.
25% of the food that ends up in our bin is because our eyes are too big for our stomachs. Portion control can be difficult when you have no idea how filling a meal might be, or when you are cooking for little ones. With common ingredients like pasta and rice, measure out how much you are cooking and find the sweet spot!
If you feel you have cooked too much, don’t put it all on the plate, tub it up for another day. Learn to utilise your leftovers. The freezer is the perfect pause button. Having leftover meals in your freezer reduces waste and time when you need a quick meal at any point. If you haven’t already, buy some good quality sealable tubs to store your food in, or (one of my personal favourites) wash out and keep takeaway containers.
We cook too much
storage is important
This is always a controversial topic. Everyone will have their different ways and places for every ingredient. Do eggs live in the fridge? How efficient is a bread bin? Should potatoes stay in the cupboard? These are all valid questions, and unfortunately, the answer is up to you. Personally, I forget about the bread in the bread bin so always have it where I will remember its existence. Nonetheless, there are some tips and tricks for food storage that I have found to be superior.
Bagged salad leaves are one of the top 5 most wasted food products in the UK. Lettuce and soft herbs stay fresh for an extended period of time if washed and stored in a sealed tub with a damp paper towel at the base. This works especially well for lettuce you have grown yourself! Instead of letting your fresh herbs wilt to mush, hang them in your kitchen upside down to dry out. Crush them and store them in jars for zero-waste dried herbs.
Root vegetables have a tendency to go soft and spongy. Store them in the fridge in water. This keeps them crisp and fresh, even the ones that have already softened.
Fermentation and pickling are foreign concepts to most people these days. 100 years ago it was common practice to preserve the harvest’s bounty. Summer produce was pickled, fermented, cured, or dried to ensure food was accessible throughout winter. The introduction of the industrialised era and supermarkets that have food readily available to us day in, day out, all year round striped us of these age-old techniques. However, preservation is the key to reducing food waste. Following these techniques, food can be stored for infinite amounts of time. The key ingredient: salt! Kimchi and sauerkraut, tepache and kvass all harness magical properties for waste reduction and also health improvement. You can learn how easy it is by following a few of my recipes or joining me for a creative workshop.