I was recently flipping through a magazine when I came across an article that gave great tips on how to stop wasting food and making your food go further. As in many houses up and down the country I end up throwing away a substantial amount of food each week! This is effectively throwing money away!
Every year in the UK we throw away £12 billon worth of food. Whether we are cooking to much, letting food go past its best, throwing away the odd bit of food is easily done, but little by little as this waste really adds up. The average family thows away £680 of food shopping - equivalent to annual utility bill!
So here are some tips:-
- Know what's in your cupboards, fridges, freezers and decide what meals you are going to cook that week before you go shopping. This means we don't have the hassle of thinking about what to cook everyday and ensures we eat our food at its freshest.
- Cooking too much food is easily done especially with rice and pasta. Try using a spaghetti measurer of for shaped pasta a good guides is two handfuls per adult. For rice a mug is just the thing, half a mug will feed two adults.
- Divide large packs of meat and fish and loaves of bread into portions and freeze until needed. There's not much that can't be frozen including hard cheese, simply grate before freezing and use on dishes such as pasta bakes.
- when you're cooking dishes such as bolognese, chilli, soups and casseroles, cook one for now and freeze one for later. That way you will have a meal readymade on busy nights when there is no time to cook.
Did you know that by simply using the food tha we already have in the fridge or by taking last night's leftovers to work for lunch you could save between £3 and £5 per day!
