Waste Not, Want Not

When I left home to go to Uni I remember my mum giving me a piece of advice, one of many I am sure but this one stuck with me.  Knowing that I would likely not have a lot of money to spare, as we hadn't growing up, she advised me to ensure that I did not scrimp on spending money on food, to go without other things.

There was not a lot of money in our household growing up, but Mum always made sure that we had good home cooked food to fill our bellies.  We had good quality cuts of meat so did not eat it every day of the week.  Apart from spaghetti which I hated, and still do, I am not a massive fan of pasta generally and baked beans which I haven't eaten since childhood I remember loving every meal my mum cooked.

What I don't really remember from my childhood is being aware of how much food costs or there ever being any food thrown away.  Food prices have gone up a lot in the past few years, I don't know about you but it feels like the bills for a food shop has nearly doubled.  I was horrified by a statistic that I heard on a podcast recently about food waste suggesting that food equivalent to eight meals a week is thrown away uneaten.  This is a statistic that I can visualise and make sense of unlike others which always seem to state the weight of waste in tonnes, I don't personally buy my food by the ton.  That waste not only measures food that is thrown away before it has been prepared or is languishing at the back of a cupboard or the fridge too long but also meals that are prepared and are not all eaten and are thrown in the bin.  I have heard and read so much about food waste, about buying food that never gets eaten before it goes off but I had not even considered the food waste that is a result of food being prepared and then not eaten.  Perhaps I am lucky to have children who are far from being picky eaters but this is so far from the reality in our house, partly because if food is not eaten it gets boxed up and put in the fridge, it wouldn't occur to me to throw it away.  One of my favourite midday meals is to dive into the fridge and produce a meal that is made up of all the random leftovers, my mum used to call this a fridge bottom meal.

I hope that the eight meals a week statistic becomes more widely known as I feel like to could be a good reminder to us all to be more mindful of what we do with the food that we have spend the time earning the money to pay for.  Another interesting comment I heard on the same podcast was about the cost of food and how we are careful with our purchases and then seem to forget that when we have the item at home.  I had not considered that before but I am sure that is so true.  I have often found myself mulling over which brand of an item to buy, is the more expensive one worth the money, will it taste better.  We are careful with our pennies in the shop considering each purchase carefully but then we when get the items home do we continue with that same careful consideration.  I try very hard to but I know there are occasions when I fall off that cart, especially when we are going away I always seem to have a fridge full of leftovers and fresh items that are not quite finished but are not quite enough to make something else with.  I have come up with some of my best meals at these times, meals that it would never be possible to recreate as that unique set of ingredients will be hard to replicate again.

One of the best ways of reducing waste is meal planning as you only buy what you need, and it makes shopping really quick, well it does for me.  I know that meal planning is not for everyone, I started doing it when my youngest was born.  As I go shopping with a specific list I am not tempted by offers which is another way we can end up with wasted food, buy one sometimes two and get one free, if they are items that can be frozen I might be tempted but I rarely buy them unless they are on my shopping list already.

We bought a new to us fridge recently, we happened to see it in a charity shop we sometimes visit.  We were not looking for a new one but our old one was over twenty years old and the plastic inside was so brittle that so many bits had broken beyond usable repair.  We had also outgrown it years earlier but it seemed wasteful to get rid of it when it still worked, it was far too shabby to donate even then.  We have retired it into the garage as storage for grocery items that we buy in bulk from a wholesaler a few times a year.  Our new fridge is twice the size of our old one, I have lost freezer space but I have a big chest freezer in the garage which is now much fuller.  I was finding that food was going off in my old fridge, particularly vegetables and salad bits as it got squashed for lack of space in the boxes that fridges often have for those items.  I also ended up burying items at the back which I often couldn't get to without playing Tetris each time I wanted something.  Keeping things visible in the fridge is so much easier now and seems such a obvious way to stop things going off, so simple but yet it is all too easy for things to get buried and forgotten about isn't it?  I also recently discovered that you can keep potatoes in the fridge, who knew?  I didn't.  I wouldn't have had room in the past but I might just be doing this in the warmer months we have an unheated porch which is the perfect place to store vegetables in the cooler months.

What about you, do you have any tips for preventing food waste you can share?