Saving Food Waste Tips

It was saving food waste tips this week which Is a great idea. In the UK each year we throw out 9.5 million tons of food waste and some of the food is disposed of unnecessarily. The UK is not as bad as China and India as they throw out 92 million tons each year.

We have use-by dates and by law, the food cannot be sold after the date specified. These types of food are perishable and include pate, soft cheese, dips, yogurt, fresh cream cakes, etc.  There are also best-before dates, these are for less perishable foods. The food can be sold after the best-before date but might not be in as good condition. These types of food are crisps, dry foods, tin foods, sugary foods, food with acid e.g pickle onions, salted foods, etc.

You can use the food at home after the use-by date but check it is safe. Look at it. Does it smell? Does it look ok and not wrinkly? You can do the sniff test. If there are any problems then throw it out. If you work in the industry you must not use the food after the use-by date.

So in what way can we save food waste?

If you buy too many lemons or limes why not chop them up and freeze them? Great for keeping drinks cool.

The same goes for mint, put them in ice cubes, great for cocktails.

Grate  hard cheese and freeze it, it will last up to a month

Keep the stems of broccoli or asparagus in water in the fridge

Too many fresh carrots, then chop them up and freeze them.

Too many tomatoes, make tomato soup

Freeze your leftover foods e.g chicken curry, soup, chili con carne, etc, and use another time

Make homemade salsa if you have peppers, tomatoes, and cucumber left over

Too much milk left over then freeze it but remember semi-skimmed and skimmed milk freeze better than blue top milk.

If you have stale bread then make breadcrumbs and freeze them for later or use them in stuffing

Save vegetable peel and make veggie crisps or vegetable peel fritters (see below)

Some of the above tips were taken from http://bhf.org.uk

Look at the recipe below for vegetable peel fritters.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/veg-peel-fritter