Zero waste week – much like dogs and Christmas - shouldn’t just be for September. The stats make for queasy reading. WRAP, the waste and resources advisory body part funded by the UK government, estimated in their recent 2013 and 2016 studies that annual food waste across households, the hospitality sector, and the retail and manufacturing sectors in the UK came in at a whopping 10 million tonnes, 60% of which is avoidable.

The numbers are so big they’re hard to visualise. If it helps (and it probably doesn’t, as the analogy is still a large one) that’s equivalent to around 833,333 double decker buses.

This has both an economic cost – estimated at over £17 billion a year, or £700 per family - and an environmental one associated with around 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

What has this got to do with nutrition?

Households are responsible for roughly 70% of this annual waste, and the sorts of foods thrown away are often exactly the kind of nutrient-dense diet staples that we should be eating.

A recent 2017 study found that Britons throw away 1.4 million bananas daily, and in 2012 Defra found that 32% of bread purchased by UK households is binned when it still could have been eaten.

While the stats don’t necessarily indicate that we’re not eating enough of certain foods, but are instead more likely a reflection of us buying more than we need to, the truth is that most of us probably aren’t deliberately wasting food. It’s tricky planning meals in advance, juggling shopping trips with general life, work, and friends, and most of us know we should be throwing less food away. So how to cut back?

Practical ways of reducing food waste

It’s all well and good pointing out that 8.4 million of UK families still struggle to put a meal on the table, but practical tips are usually more helpful than making everyone feel guilty where lifestyle changes are concerned. So without any further ado:

1. Know the difference between a use by date and a best before date…

"Best before" dates are about quality, not safety. When the date is passed, it doesn't mean that the food will be harmful, but simply that it might begin to lose its flavour and texture.

A ‘use by’ date on the other hand is used for certain foods that go off quickly – such as meat and fish products. Eating these foods after the ‘use by’ date could put your health at risk given that these foods are often fresh and deteriorate quickly. That said, even foods with ‘use by’ dates can still be frozen to extend their life.

2. …as well as being able to assess freshness yourself

Particularly for tinned foods or anything with a ‘best before’ date, not a ‘use by’ date, common sense if often the best way to judge whether something really needs to be chucked or not. If it tastes and smells ok, then it’s probably fine to cook with. Thoroughly cooking foods like eggs and chickens will kill off most of the bacteria lurking in raw foods.

3. Challenge yourself. Think ‘ready, steady, cook’

There’s always something you can do to use up those spare bits you’d usually throw away, and even the most disparate set of ingredients can still make a lovely meal. Here are a few ideas:

·       Make stale bread into crouton or crumbs and sprinkle over most anything. This veggie kofta recipe is a great way of using up any bread that’s seen better days.

·       Instead of chucking them, try sautéing the green tops of beetroot or carrots in olive oil and pepper. Ditto cauliflower leaves. These are lovely roasted with a bit of lemon, or added to omelettes.

·       Keep your cheese rinds, and use them to flavour risottos or soup.

·       Toss the heads of your leeks, or slightly wilted salad leaves into soups.

·       Roasting solves a multitude of sins. Broccoli stems, squishy tomatoes, and wilted carrots can all be brought back to life with a bit of oil and 45 minutes in the oven at 180 degrees.

·       Don’t toss out your half-finished hummus. Hummus goes with a surprisingly large range of foods. Try in sandwiches, with roasted veg, on toast, or add a dollop to salads.

4. Get creative

There’s a lot of foods I think we just write-off once they’re even slightly past their best. But many foods can be recycled and live to die another day.

That last, hardened inch of peanut butter at the bottom of the tub? Make date and nut butter with the leftovers plus a few dates and half an apple, or add to chicken and tomato for a comforting groundnut curry.

Those brown speckled bananas? Make banana bread, or bake in the oven with golden syrup and serve with a dollop of Greek yogurt.

5. The freezer is your friend

Berries, bananas, bread, brownies, milk, meats and numerous other foods (not all beginning with ‘b’…) all freeze well.

Once they’re out of the freezer their uses are many. Try adding frozen bananas to smoothies, sprinkling frozen berries on porridge, or using them in cold drinks like you would ice cubes. Defrosting frozen chicken carcasses and using them to make stock or soup always beats ready-made stock cubes hands down, and any left-over gravy from the Sunday roast can be used in much the same way to flavour soups and stews.

6. Tupperware parties are due a comeback

Well, not really, but there’s no denying Tupperware is flipping useful. If you cook too much, don’t throw it away! Stick it in Tupperware ready for the next night you come home late from work and need to eat something sharpish without any hassle. Or take a fridge foraged lunch of bits and pieces into work using your tupperware, and save your pennies for more frivolous activities. Yes, Tupperware can be annoying to wash, and it’s a lifetime’s mission to correctly match lids to boxes (tupperware = the socks of the crockery world) but they do always come in handy. Really.

7. Let’s change our mindset around leftovers

Your dinner doesn’t always have to be a fully formed meal straight out of the pages of the latest must-have cookbook. Cook once, eat twice, is my motto. Stews and curries often taste nicer the day after they’ve cooked anyway, so leftovers should definitely not be seen as the poor relation. If you want to jazz up any sad-looking leftovers, try adding a bit of chilli oil, a handful of spinach, or a sprinkle of sunflower seeds to the pan when you reheat them.

In summary

Although talking about ‘home economics’ might sound rather old school, doing a bit of old-fashioned weekly meal planning, eating ‘nose to tail’, and using one ingredient or food stuff twice over would likely help all of us to reduce waste.

We’re lucky enough in many high income countries in the West to have an incredible range and amount of food available to us. So let’s not abuse that, but try and instead to really make the most of it.

References

https://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/why-save-food

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/how-the-uks-household-food-waste-problem-is-getting-worse-a7520171.html

http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/Estimates_%20in_the_UK_Jan17.pdf

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17353707