Reducing our Food Waste
A few years ago I watched a programme called Hugh's War on Waste. It highlighted the crazy amount of food that gets wasted each year and has really made me think. The stats day that;
UK households threw away 7.3 million tonnes of wasted food in 2015. And before it even gets to our houses farmers are wasting enough fruit and veg to feed 2-4 million people, that's enough to feed 6 UK cities their 5 a day for a year.
If you look at those stats alongside the Trussel Trust's mid-year report on foodbank use that "586,907 three day emergency food supplies [were] given to people in crisis in first half of this year, a 13% increase on the same period last year – 208,956 to children"
We are wasting a staggering amount of food, yet we have the situation that lots of people cannot afford to feed themselves or their families. It really is quite sickening.
My children are quite fussy eaters (well mainly the older one, the younger one just copies her). People used to ask whether they ate well, I used to joke that the bin ate well. But that just serves to highlight the trivial nature by which we casually throw away food. Can you imagine people 100 years ago doing that?
The problem is that we are definitely guilty of food waste. Being busy often means guessing what food we need each week which invariably means sometimes I guess wrong. But I have been making a conscious effort to try and reduce our household food waste. We now have a menu which is mostly the same week on week with a few tweaks here and there. It has also reduced my stress levels of getting home from a busy day at work and having to think what we are going to eat. (It also stops my husband from eating the pizza from the freezer as a snack or at least he knows to replace it by Wednesday!)
The other side is for noting down when we run out of stuff. (Yeah i know, since cutting back on dairy I like artichokes on my pizza Ok? Don't judge me)
Back over the summer the supermarkets had started stocking a few types of wonky veg. Which I bought as they were cheaper and to encourage supermarkets to stop turning away perfectly good food.
In September I came across a company called Wonky Veg Boxes that do veg box deliveries using fruit and veg that would otherwise be going to landfill because they are deemed not standard enough. I signed up. What would they look like I wondered? I had images of receiving Blackadder-esque phallic turnips! But no, all the fruit and veg looked normal to me. Sometimes a little bigger, sometimes a little smaller but not hugely different. And this is the stuff supermarkets say is unsellable?!
I did once get a heart shaped potato but am actually a little disappointed on the lack of comic vegetables!
It has also helped cut back on my plastic packaging as 99% of the fruit and veg comes as is. They have a great ethos and donate 10% of the produce they rescue to food bank too.
They currently only operate in the Coventry and Leicester area at the present time but if you're in this area I can definitely recommend them.
So overall our bin still eats quite well from my children's rejected food, but hopefully less well than it used to.
UK households threw away 7.3 million tonnes of wasted food in 2015. And before it even gets to our houses farmers are wasting enough fruit and veg to feed 2-4 million people, that's enough to feed 6 UK cities their 5 a day for a year.
If you look at those stats alongside the Trussel Trust's mid-year report on foodbank use that "586,907 three day emergency food supplies [were] given to people in crisis in first half of this year, a 13% increase on the same period last year – 208,956 to children"
We are wasting a staggering amount of food, yet we have the situation that lots of people cannot afford to feed themselves or their families. It really is quite sickening.
My children are quite fussy eaters (well mainly the older one, the younger one just copies her). People used to ask whether they ate well, I used to joke that the bin ate well. But that just serves to highlight the trivial nature by which we casually throw away food. Can you imagine people 100 years ago doing that?
The problem is that we are definitely guilty of food waste. Being busy often means guessing what food we need each week which invariably means sometimes I guess wrong. But I have been making a conscious effort to try and reduce our household food waste. We now have a menu which is mostly the same week on week with a few tweaks here and there. It has also reduced my stress levels of getting home from a busy day at work and having to think what we are going to eat. (It also stops my husband from eating the pizza from the freezer as a snack or at least he knows to replace it by Wednesday!)
Back over the summer the supermarkets had started stocking a few types of wonky veg. Which I bought as they were cheaper and to encourage supermarkets to stop turning away perfectly good food.
In September I came across a company called Wonky Veg Boxes that do veg box deliveries using fruit and veg that would otherwise be going to landfill because they are deemed not standard enough. I signed up. What would they look like I wondered? I had images of receiving Blackadder-esque phallic turnips! But no, all the fruit and veg looked normal to me. Sometimes a little bigger, sometimes a little smaller but not hugely different. And this is the stuff supermarkets say is unsellable?!
It has also helped cut back on my plastic packaging as 99% of the fruit and veg comes as is. They have a great ethos and donate 10% of the produce they rescue to food bank too.
They currently only operate in the Coventry and Leicester area at the present time but if you're in this area I can definitely recommend them.
So overall our bin still eats quite well from my children's rejected food, but hopefully less well than it used to.
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