How much food do you waste?

Posted on 9/6/09 by Maddy in East Sheen (No comments)

[caption id="attachment_7620" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Cakes"][/caption]

I religiously recycle all my dry goods - paper, card, plastic, glass, cans, etc. But when I moved in to my house (almost 3 years ago) I never quite got round to doing the food recycling and I am ashamed to say that I never have. There is no real reason for it, except that I thought I should probably clean out the boxes before I used them, and it is one of those jobs that I have never got around to doing.

I'm not the sort of person who buys massively too much food at the supermarket - in fact, I am guilty of the opposite. I never have any food in the house! However, since having a child I have started wasting more food unintentionally. My daughter is a bit of a fussy eater and often doesn't finish what's put in front of her and it's not always something I feel like tucking in to!

I was shocked when I read today that in the Uk we waste £10 billion worth of food a year! That equates to about a third of the food we buy - in fact, the average family throws away £610 worth of food a year (and I could enjoy spending that money)! And whilst some of this is peelings, bones, teabags, etc. most of it is simply food we haven't eaten! And this isn't just costing us a lot of money - it is costing the earth too: food that ends up in landfill sites where it rots and releases greenhouse-damaging methane. So, I have decided to finally make that change and start composting my food waste - especially as we are lucky that Richmond Council collects it from the front door.

If you think you are buying too much food and want some advice on how to cut down you can visit the website www.lovefoodhatewaste.com - and here are a few quick pointers:

• Be creative with leftovers 


• Check dates - food can be used right up to a use-by date or frozen. Best before dates are just for quality - so there is no reason to throw food out on the exact date


• Measure out correct portions

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