Topic of the month

Stop Food Waste

The average family spends €15 a week on food that never sees a plate, landing straight in the rubbish bin. That’s over €700 a year - and more when you consider the costs associated with waste disposal.
And food waste is not only bad for your pocket, it also has serious implications for the environment. The amount of food we throw away is a huge waste of resources. Just think about all the energy, water and packaging used in food production, transportation and storage. This all goes to waste when we throw away perfectly good food. In fact, if we all stopped wasting food that could have been eaten, it would have the same impact on carbon emissions as taking 1 in 4 cars off our roads.

So for 2010, think about your food waste and by following a few simple actions you could reduce the amount of food you throw in your bin, helping the environment and, importantly, saving you money.

Better Buying
- If you are shopping for the week, plan your meals ahead. Check your fridge, freezer and cupboards and plan meals around what you find.
- Always use a shopping list – and stick to it. Beware of 2-for-1 special deals – good for toilet roll, not great for fruit and salads.
- Don’t go shopping when you’re hungry – you’ll buy more than you need.
- Shop for what you actually eat, not what you wish you would eat, for example, buying salads every week to be healthy but never eating them. Almost 50% of all salad leaves bought in this country are thrown in the bin.

Savvy storage
- Make sure your food is stored in the correct place, for example, bananas should not be stored in the fridge. For more information, check www.stopfoodwaste.ie or www.safefood.eu.
- Use your own judgement when it comes to throwing food out. Use by dates should be followed. Best before dates are a guide, but remember that milk is not like Cinderella – it doesn’t go off at midnight. The exception to this rule is eggs. Egg cartons only display a best before date and eggs are not fit for consumption past this date. Labels such as sell by and display unit are used for shop stock control and are of no interest to householders.

Canny cooking
- Use correct portion sizes – how often do we find ourselves throwing out pasta or rice because we overestimated our appetites.
- Try using serving bowls instead of putting food on individual plates. People will then take what they need and leftover food can be stored for future use rather than being scrapped off plates into a bin.
- If you make extra food, use it the next day for lunch or dinner. Otherwise freeze it for another day.
- Make stock with leftovers and freeze it as ice cubes – these can be stored and used in the future. This can also be used for wine for use in cooking.
- For leftover recipes, check the website www.stopfoodwaste.ie.

 

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