Love Food Hate Waste

You could save £480 per year by throwing less food away (and if you have children you could save £680).

In Bracknell Forest, Reading and Wokingham, approximately one third of the rubbish in our bins is food.  This includes leftovers (food we cooked but did not eat) and food still in its packets (food we bought and threw away).

As well as costing us all money, throwing food away also has a big impact on our environment.  It takes a lot of time, energy, water and resources to produce, package, transport and sell the food that we buy.  By throwing food away, we waste the resources we used to make the food in the first place.  Food waste that is sent to a landfill site will rot to produce methane (a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide) and therefore contribute to global warming.

There are simple steps that we can all take to cut down on the amount of food we throw away:

• Plan meals and write a shopping list - that way you will only buy the food you need and avoid impulse purchases that won't get eaten.
• Store-cupboard Essentials - Make sure that you have essentials in your cupboard (such as rice and pasta) that can be used to create lots of different meals.
• Use by/Best before dates - confusion about use by/best before dates leads us to throw more away.  Use by dates refer to food safety and you should not eat products once they have passed this date.  Best before dates refer to quality and foods should be safe to eat past this date, but they may not be at their best.  
• Perfect Portions - If you always cook too much, why not try using the love food hate waste portion planner to help you cook the perfect portions.
• Lovely Leftovers - Leftover portions can often be frozen to create homemade ready meals, or used again the next day to create a 'free lunch'.
• Rescue Recipies - check our lovefoodhatewaste.com for loads of recipies to help you create delicious meals using the scraps you often find at the back of the fridge or storecupboard.

Even the most committed food waste reducers will still produce a small amount of food waste.  Some of this, like vegetable and fruit peelings can be composted at home.  And for the chicken bones and fish skins, why not consider using a green cone food digester?