How many of us have thought about using unwanted pizza crusts to turn into croutons, or keeping broccoli stems to make vegetable stock? We throw away heaps of food unnecessarily – according to a study by the Waste and Resources Action Programme, British households throw out the equivalent of six whole meals per week. That adds up to £700 a year.
Supermarkets also discard millions of tonnes of unwanted food each year. “Unwanted” doesn’t mean out of date, it can be down to something as menial as weather forecasting. If the weather folk predict a hot summer, supermarkets will fill their shelves with juices and cold drinks. Cue a rainy season and these won’t shift.
It's an absurd waste given the rising numbers of people on the streets and in need of food banks. This is where charities like FareShare step in. They work with big retailers like Sainsbury’s and Pret A Manger, re-distributing the food they don’t sell to homeless charities.
At home we can help to avoid waste by experimenting in the kitchen. Before chucking out food we can stop to think whether it's still usable. Can a rich gravy be made from the leftover chicken bones of a roast, or a warm salad from the fried leaves and stems of radishes?
How much food do you bin? Do you use up leftovers to make new dishes? Let us know on one of our social media accounts – how much food do you throw away?
