How to reduce food waste

What is food waste? 

Food waste can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. It can be the leftovers you scrape off your plate into the bin. It can be that delicately freckled banana. It can even be those crusty ends of your bread loaf – which are totally fine, and actually a superior slice of toast, some may say – but quite often get binned.

Spuds and salad items are the most common foods to miss the mouths of their buyers. Destined to lose their attractive bright colours over a week in the fridge, and win a fast-track ticket to the trash. But what can we be doing to reduce our food waste?

How to reduce food waste

If you’re out and about, you might feel like you’ve got less control over food wastage, but it just takes a little bit of conscientiousness. If you’re dining out for lunch or dinner, consider what’s going to be on your plate. If there’s an item you dislike on your favoured dish, ask your server to remove it – so it stays in the kitchen and avoids the bin. Less food is wasted when it’s open to the whole table, making tapas-style dining a sustainable choice for many. And if your eyes were larger than your tummy, ask for your leftovers to be boxed up to take home, or more colloquially, ask for a doggie bag.

Easiest ways to reduce food waste at home

If you’re looking for simple methods of managing your food waste at home, consider how much fresh foods, (like fruit and veg), you’re getting through in a week – and tailor your shopping list to suit. One of the best ways to keep track of how much you’re going to use is to organise your weekly meal plan around the ingredients you’ll have in the house at any one time. 

If you’ve made a bit too much of a certain meal, think about what you can freeze to reheat at a later date. And if you’re looking at a bunch of leftover ingredients, think about how you can lean on your kitchen creativity to use them up and prevent them from going to waste. 

Like most foods, rice can safely be frozen and reheated to be enjoyed at a later date. Just make sure it’s stored in an air-tight container in the freezer, and piping hot throughout when reheated. You shouldn’t, however, keep rice in the fridge for any more than one day before reheating. 

How important are best-before dates?

There’s an ongoing conversation about best-before dates in the UK, and how much they’re contributing to food waste. Milk ranks highly as a wasted fridge item, as buyers are reluctant to touch the white stuff after its use-by date. Retailers like M&S have recently decided to remove the best-before dates on their milk, suggesting customers opt for the good old sniff test in its place. 

A lot of best-before labels are just a suggestion. Of course, the food will likely be best before the future date, but that doesn’t mean it has to be used by that date. And it certainly doesn’t mean it needs to go straight into the bin on that day. Over the next few years, it’s likely we’ll see a lot more ‘use-by’ labels in the supermarkets, or if everyone follows M&S, none at all. 

Benefits of reducing food waste

The benefits of reducing food waste are endless. It’s no secret that there are environmental concerns going on all over the world, and every little helps. Whether you’re sorting your recycling, making use of natural products, or using up all the food you’ve brought into your home. 

When food waste goes to landfills, it generates huge amounts of methane as it rots, which is an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Not to mention, all the energy wasted in the production, fertilisation, harvest and transportation processes.

When we use all the food we buy we’re helping to prevent global warming, we’re reducing the growth of landfill sites, and economically, we’re not wasting money at the shops. So, it’s a win-win-win.