So how much food do you throw away?

Oh yeah, batch cooking is also really helpful.

When I’m on my own, it’s a PITA to cook a proper meal for one, so I started making two meals and saving the second one for lunch at work the next day. I should really ramp up the scale and start freezing stuff.

I waste very little. Buy and cook from scratch daily and only stock up on tinned stuff/dry pasta etc.
I just dont like waste. Not because i was brought up eating coal, infact thinking about it my folks always food shopped at M+S and probably could’nt really afford it. My mum still shops there and definitely can’t afford it!

The whole best before date thing is crazy. I have seen how much a tiny supermarket chucks out at the end of the day and its crazy- i worked at Terminal 5 doing night shifts during/after the construction phase. M+S would close at midnight and we’d grab loads of ‘free’ grub once they’d got rid of it as we had our break at 1am. £3 smoothies still cold etc. Once they got wind a security guard was posted outside the refuse room to foil us! Was funny/daft.

it’s a PITA to cook a proper meal for one, so I started making two meals and saving the second one for lunch at work the next day.

like ordering a curry for 1 isn’t enough for free delivery so you order 2 and freeze one, or, as is likely, the munchies kick in big style and you scoff both like the fat gluttonous pig you are

ashamed face

What about the food that never makes to the supermarket because it rejected for being the: wrong size, colour, shape, over stock. Loads of produce gets thrown or simply ploughed back into the ground. What ever the percentage we can argue but in a starving world we waste shed loads of food. Given the water it takes to grow, process and general mess with all types of food, we really do need to wise up to the planets limitations.

What about the food that never makes to the supermarket because it rejected for being the: wrong size, colour, shape, over stock

Have you never been to Unicorn Organic Supermarket in Chorlton? You pay premium prices for that stuff!!!

One of my favourite routines is a chicken roast on Sunday. Meat and veg that doesn’t get eaten becomes chicken pot pie on Monday. Chicken pot pie that doesnt get eaten on monday becomes lunch for Tuesday and Wednesday. The carcass gets boiled down for stock. Clean, dry bones only in the bin.

Numerous times in the past (not so much now since wheelie bins) I’ve seen chicken carcases hanging out of bin bags in the street that the cats have ripped open which have got easily another serving still on them. Disgraceful.

Almost none – we have a dog, who will literally eat anything.

We also tend to do stuff like the chicken roast, then chicken-stew-or-soup-the-next-day routine. Cook six portions of stuff in one go, eat two, fridge two, and freeze two. That kind of thing.

Biscuit Powered – absolutely. I have a lovely chicken broth recipe for left over roast chicken, including boiling the carcas for stock. Last week it was chicken and asparagus risotto for a change. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

we’re pretty badly organised on food so either do batch cooking or buy on demand – no weekly/ monthly shops.
I cannot abide throwing food away though so generally throw away very little – if anything it’s veg that we have had to buy in packets and ends up not being used – like celery or parsley or potatoes – you just can’t buy supermarket potatoes loose anymore, apart from baking potatoes.

we got a big sack of potatoes given over Christmas which really annoyed me as we don’t eat a lot of potatoes so will probably end up throwing most of them away.

we only stick out 1 bag of non recyclable/compostable a week (i refuse to have a compost bin in the garden as i just dont have the time or space to get it working for me….. and having spent a large portion of my youth removing other folks “compost” – read spoil heap and taking them to the tip as they also didnt do anything with them and they were jsut attracting pests)

There is the odd occasion where ill have a clear out of cupboards and find a tin or two thats well out of date – found one on the last clear out that id missed and missed…. a tin of pink salmon that had a best by date that preceeded the last two house moves !! not only that – no one eats the stuff in our house. The girlfriends gran gives us stuff and the girlfriend cannot throw it out because her gran gave it us.

Waste.

if the food makes it to my plate it generally goes down the hatch. We also do the batch cooking and meal planning which helps – especially if we are both riding late at night , stick pre frozen meals in the fridge the night before – give it 5 minutes nuke attack and your eating.

Only non-consumables.

I have this irrational fear of dying whilst leaving behind a fridge and cupboards full of food so tend to only buy a weeks worth at a time.

Would still be a rather annoyed last breath if I knew there was a nice steak waiting for me. Worth a haunting, even…

also , do none of you own a freezer ?

we freeze all meat unless they will be eaten today or tomorrow when bought and also all bread unless bought specifically for a meal today or tomorrow and toast or defrost as required.

voila no off meat or stale bread – id LOVE a bread machine but no space currently in kitchen for it 🙁

It really depends. Uusally not that much.

We plan our meals everyweek and as such, if we stick to it we waste very little (and that goes in compost anyway).

Where it goes wrong is when things change and we don’t stick to our planned meals. In that instance, what can be is frozen but there’s always some waste as a result.

we freeze all meat unless they will be eaten today or tomorrow when bought and also all bread

the freezer is generally full of 23 portions of chill and 18 portions of chicken cacciatore. chicken breasts are the only meat that get frozen.
Fresh bread is the only bread we eat; defrosted bread is nasty.

“Fresh bread is the only bread; defrosted bread is nasty. “

in what way ? i just toast as required 😉 – or stick it in a plastic bag and by the time lunch time comes around its exactly as it would have been coming from the breadbin – that doesnt say much , hovis et all are fooking garbage bread but needs must.

fresh bread(as in from the bakery) does taste rank when defrosted , goes all airless and soggy.

Is no-one here willing to own up to being properly wasteful then?

Powerbar wrappers on the trail don’t count as food waste btw.

The elderly in-laws are sadly obsessed with date stamps and will bin food that is a day out of date as if it will somehow get up and walk out of the kitchen on its own.

Have reasoned with them a number of times but they still do it.

Their buying habits are very strange they buy ‘whoopsies’ from Aldi/Lidl/wherever simply because they’ve been reduced, eat a few and bin the rest.

By the same token they have a curious hoard of baked beans and corned beef under the stairs 😕

in what way ?

toasting it is ok, but it seems to dry out if eaten ‘raw’ and loses it’s lovely bready bounciness.

im the opposite to that statistic…….over 50% of my food comes out of the bins.
ive been collecting food out of the supermarket bins for years (illegally) the amount of stuff in there that isnt even out of date is truly shocking.
i collect 2-3 bin bags of food every visit
this time of year is fine but i do lay off in the summer once temps go up but by then im eating out of my garden

we’re pretty wasteful..

we buy the ingredients each week to make certain meals.. then maybe have something else or eat out..

loadsa waste

awful people.. my compost bin loves us to death though

When I’m home alone.. 😐 I often buy two of most everything, certainly if working away or back home without MrsBouy. Which inevitably means 2 bags of rocket, 2 of watercress.. yadda yadda. Thing I find annoying is 1 bag of each will last two days as is, so the other two get thrown away cos’ they’ve turned back into compost in the bags. 🙄 and 4 days of salad is enough to turn a Man into a raging Homo.. 😆

Not much for us- occasionally a few mouldy slices of bread, or an onion or last couple of spuds that have got lost at the back of the cupboard or something but that’s generally about it.

By the same token they have a curious hoard of baked beans and corned beef under the stairs

are they preppers?

Have you looked behind the piles of baked beans and corned beef?

I’m betting there will be gas masks, a shot gun and enough ammo to wipe out a small town

buy my ingredients for specfic meals so next to no waste – usually just waht the kids have left.

You lot have just reminded me I’ve forgotten to take the bin out this morning. Bollox – that’s 2 weeks till the next collection (it should be full by then).

Frustratingly, we still waste too much food. We’re much better when I’m in control of cooking and shopping (I write a weekly menu and refuse to shop without a list; Mrs North is the opposite). But Toddler North is even fussier than me when I was her age. Yes, I know I’m a fatty now (which doesn’t bode well for her).

id LOVE a bread machine but no space currently in kitchen for it

Making it by hand only takes 15 mins prep and then two minutes knocking back and shaping. I make all of mine by hand at the moment.

Back from work: mix, knead and set to rise – then head out for a ride/run. come back and knock it back then get dinner on. half an hour before bed bung it in the oven and then take it out and leave it to cool overnight.

I quite like the routine to be honest. It gets a bit more tricky if you like heavy doughs or sourdough though.

I only really buy what I need as food waste has always been a pet hate of mine. It really pissed me off I had to throw some out just before christmas as I had the Norovirus and it went off.

are they preppers?

If they are, they’ve been preparing for the last 20 years

Have you looked behind the piles of baked beans and corned beef? I’m betting there will be gas masks, a shot gun and enough ammo to wipe out a small town

Behind the tins are jars of chutney 😕 which get confused with mincemeat at Xmas time. Makes the mince pies interesting to say the least.

It must be great being old 🙂

Very little.
All bread is from the local bakery, sliced and then frozen. Just take out however many slices you need.
Lucky enough to shop locally and buy stuff when I need it and most meals are cooked from scratch, as I can’t afford takaways or meals out atm.

Peelings, fruit of veg waste goes into compost heap and I grow some stuff.

Meals are often used for lunch if any left over.
Always been like this, as can’t abide food waste.

Oh and what mt says above is important too.

The statistics quoted in the article are average figures – clearly the rest of the nation are massive wasters seeing how much everybody here appears to be bringing the average down…

Following on from a previous comment, I am not certain the mantra of always leaving a clean plate is a good one. It seems to be in-grained in people of a certain age, but what may have been a good idea at a time of rationing may not be so great in today’s consumer society.

I have a concept for a diet based on the premise you must always leave food on your plate. The idea being over time your average portion size decreases as a natural reaction to avoid excess wastage. And which is better from the perspective of providing food for the global population: putting 3 potatoes on your plate and throwing out one, or to eat 4 potatoes and being a bit chubby?

My diet idea may not actually work by the way.

Ab1970 – i was described as more meat on a musket loading pole – my diet obviously work – how ever we exercise portion control.

Took bad going to the states – your not supposed to finish the meal. My and my mate went to pappa deauxs a
L week and worked through the chefs specials – each day the portion got a little bigger

Speaking with the barman we were being served by all week – he pointed out we kept finishing our portions !