Chucking out food

Anything I can cook and freeze I do rather than chuck, but some things I have no option. I live alone and some things are far too much for one person, for example I buy packs of baby leaf salad which I then have to eat for 4 days so I can finish the bag rather than throw away. I never buy a loaf cos far too much so I get rolls and freeze some. I think of the way my mum had to feed all of us and with not much money, trying not to waste food. I think I've got it from her.

DS and DD both throw a lot of perfectly good food away, as soon as it has reached it's best before date, whilst I think that many foods are fine to use later. Also part used packs of cheese that are drying out, left over roasts and so on. DH and I often have a meal to use up odds and ends: risotto, fajitas, cold meat or fish with jacket potatoes, a myriad of uses for bolognese sauce, spanish omelets, curried leftovers, etc.
My other two DC are no so profligate though they don't have families so buy more single portions of food rather than family meals.

I deep down feel it is bad management of our resources if we have to throw food away. It is like throwing money in the waste bins. It is careless and irresponsible. I am angry with myself when this happens. We do compost things that are suitable. I guess being born after the war and while rationing was still in force must have coloured my thinking. My parents used things responsibly, we always ate well, so in comparison, when we have so much more , along with fridges and freezers we should have got our acts together. I say this knowing that there are a couple of small avocados in my fridge which may end up in the compost today, so that shows that I need to up my game a bit.

I think we need to be a bit more careful how we read 'food thrown away' staistics. It was reported yesterday that the average UK household throughs over 70 kilos of food away each year, but then added, that this included inedible waste like banana skins, potato peel, animal bones etc.

It also said that countries that were less well off compard with us disposed of more food waste because they were more likely to cook from scratch and have less access to prepared food.

This rather suggests that the more food you throw away, as long as it is inedible, the more environmentally friendly you are. Oh- and that you dispose of this waste in a composter, either in your garden or at a central composting site.

I almost never throw food away. I use my eyes and nose regarding food which may have passed its use by date, although I would never use meat, poultry or fish which had exceeded its use by date. I regularly make delicious fridge soups and I have a compost heap. Careful shopping is the key to preventing waste.

I tend to make a casserole with beef and veg every so often. I put any veg left over in it, and lettuce, celery, tomatoes that are a bit jaded but not perished

I can't bear to throw food out; it's not a question of money, for me it's a question of principle. So many people in the world are starving. I've had so much fun this last year using things up and inventing recipes or adapting recipes to use things which would otherwise have gone to waste. I don't garden or compost so we usually only throw away veg peelings and egg-shells. Don't fancy eating egg-shells somehow!!!

I usually ignore Best Before dates. Use By dates I do take more seriously, but normally plan meals so that they get used up in time (or at least within a few days of the date). Leftover food / veggies, can be made into a big pot of soup or curry or chilli. I remember a friend coming around for lunch and loving the soup I'd made - "cream of fridge" - mainly tired looking salad veggies chopped up, plus what was left in the tub of hummous, and all blitzed together. A lot of people don't seem to realise that lettuce can be added to cooked dishes - it "collapses" in the same way as spinach does, but it's fine. After all, people used to eat cream of lettuce soup!

The council have just started collecting our foor waste so it's concentrated our minds a bit.However I am finding that once the tea bags, coffee grounds and fruit and vegetable peelings have gone in there isn't much else that we throw away. Any odd portions of food tend to get popped in the freezer and a bit of frozen bread is always handy if we run out.

Re egg shells - can I just share that we rinse them out, dry them out in the oven when it's next on (for something-else) and then crumble them into a pot - to be used to sprinkle a thick layer around plants in the garden to deter slugs and snails. Works brilliantly.

We rarely throw food away - perhaps just the odd few leaves of lettuce that are past it, or a squashy tomato. Other than that, if I feel we won't be eating an item soon it is frozen.
I would urge caution about mould; I would blithely scrape a piece of cheese, until a scientist at my place of work expressed horror and said this is different mould to that which is specifically cultivated - like Stilton - and the spores will have gone right through the food, and are no good for you at all. She went into horrors regarding the effect on the body, especially the lungs, and although my Mother scraped mould off and I am still alive and kicking, we may not all be so lucky.

An elderly neighbour of mine (in her 80's) once shared with me that she had a margerine tub in her freezer into which went any leftover food. Once it was full (the size was the right portion size for her), she made a soup out of the contents. She called it her Surprise Soup because every soup tasted differently!

We throw very little away apart from vegetable peelings (though some chefs apparently say you should use them for a stock pot) bones and tea bags. It gets composted. I was brought up post war and my mother wasted very little. It's habit I suppose.

Leftover food generally gets eaten the next day for lunch by Mr M (the human hoover). What's left on our plates goes into the dog, or the cats if suitable.

I was born before the war so also try not to throw out food.
My mother was very thrifty - if there was leftover bread she put it on the oven base to dry out then crushed it with the rolling pin to make breadcrumbs. to coat fish cakes etc.
But there were rarely any leftovers as food was so short. Everyone was thin in those days, but healthy.

I'm in the hardly throw food out camp and get annoyed with myself if I forget something and have to bin it.

I think I'm lucky as both DD use common sense - sight, smell and taste - before they throw food out.

Now ever DGD, 10, is following in our footsteps. She told me on FaceTime the other day that she was only eating the nice bit of her Banana but had put the too brown bit in the freezer with the other brown ones for baking and smoothies. She likes the smoothies best :-)

She is happy to scrape mould off jam too. Just before Christmas she had me in stitches when she said "Mummy and me didn't make this jam just to throw it out you know Granny". Good Lass :-)

I keep an eye on dates for Baking Powder and Yeast only because they stop working but I think I have enough about me to make my own mind up about what's OK and I haven't made anyone ill yet :-)

It would be a very sad day in our house if I threw food out, having three pointers means most bits are eaten up by them if we can't do something with it.

Cleared my chiller tray out of all old veg this morning, and made a soup with bits of old celery, a bag of old parsnips, a carrot, an onion, blitzed it with a stock cube and juice of an old lemon, finely chopped three old halves of peppers, a handful of parsley and spinach, added the last three things and simmered for a few minutes.

It was a strange but tasty soup! And nothing thrown away.

It is nothing to do with war memories etc. Throwing or burning food was feeding the Devil. It is being a skillful cook, using imagination plus the bird table, the compost or dogs or cats. A fragment of books on Africa and long drought come into my mind, would they have wasted the bread, fruit, chicken carcass? Oh shame on the wasters.

Re Missfoodlove: I'm with you over fruit and veg. from supermarkets that are rock hard at purchase and then rot extra fast. If you can use a street market you can buy food fit to eat straight away. As a single person, I cannot get salad bags which are the right size and otfen have to throw out half, or go without. Have tried growing mixed leaves in a garden trough, but not very satisfactory.

I was born in the 60s and my parents didn't have much money so nothing got wasted. My Mum would scrape mould of cheese and jam and then eat it, I won't do that

I had a Saturday job in a supermarket in the 60s. My first responsibility each week was to unwrap any cheese with mould on, scrape the mould off, reweigh and rewrap.

I was born in the sixties to parents who were born in WW2 so remembered rationing well. I don't remember sell by dates until l was more or less grown up and we were brought up not to waste things. I, too, still do the sniff test and many things are fine after their best before/sell by/use by dates. I have no problem with eating a yoghurt a week after its use by date and eggs can be used after their dates too. I have thrown food away but always with the greatest reluctance and guilt.

Wizend, bagged up salad will keep for a a week if placed in a clipped box which has lined with paper towels. Also one sheet of paper towels on top of salad.

I love salad, live by myself ,and only go shopping once a week. I have one box for spinach and one for salad mix. Also purchase half a cucumer, again wrap in Kitchen towel will last a good week,.

I try to throw out as little as possible of any foods. Do not take any notice (indeed do not notice) BBdates. I was quite annoyed with a teenage g.child who was making themselves a cup of coffee in my kitchen and looked at the date on the milk before using it. Pointed out that of all foods, milk is one of the easiest to know if it is turning or off - just use your nose.

I still cut off any mould that may develop on hard cheese, and then use the rest of the cheese, same with jams, etc. I do not have the best digestive system, my colon has been removed, but never suffer from any type of food poisoning.

So much good waste, most of it totally unnecessary, so many people still going very hungry!!!

I rarely throw food away, if it’s cooked food I freeze it and will have it for lunch, if it’s fruit or veggies going past their best I will make soup and freeze or pie filling with fruit or a compote to freeze and have for breakfast. I will grate and freeze cheese to use in cooking. We freeze all our bread and take it out as we are using it (unless I get a fresh loaf and use it all up straight away). Now there are only the 2 of us (and the dog) we buy small amounts often to avoid waste. Since lockdown, we don’t really do big shops anymore.
Just can’t bear to waste food and I think people have forgotten how to use their own judgement about looking, smelling and tasting if something is off. Back in the day fruit and veg was all sold loose, no packaging and no sell by/use by dates. You just need to be careful with higher risk food, meat, fish and dairy.

Use by dates drive me mad!! I use taste and sight if it looks okay and tastes okay then it's normally okay to use! Anything a bit iffy goes to my ever grateful chickens, dogs and sometimes the cat!!
Hate seeing good food binned! Criminal waste!

I rarely throw out food and often eat food that is past its sell by date. Like others, my daughter and son-in-law were horrified but they now bring me out of date crisps, peanuts and loads of oatmeal/breakfast bars which they decide they no longer like! I am also now getting spag.bol or shepherds pie when they have made too much and I have even converted them to freezing food!

Message withdrawn at poster's request.