NOW CLOSED: Share your views on food waste for CarrieMumsnet and Unilever UK and you could win £100 cash

We waste very little. Never buy packaged or processed food, except items such as tinned tomatoes or tuna or beans and chickpeas, and cook everything from scratch. All peelings, tea bags, coffee grounds go into either the compost heap or the Council's food recycling bin. (Our council is good on recycling.)

My husband bakes all the bread and makes the pasta.

I shop by seeing what's good value and cooking around the ingredients rather than start with recipes and seeking the ingredients afterwards. Anything not used goes into soups or casseroles and any meat (we don't eat much) is minced to make shepherds pies and so on for the grandchildren.

I keep a good supply of spices, bought from Asian shops at a tenth of the price of supermarkets, and grow herbs and some vegetables which would be expensive to buy.

This sounds a bit priggish, but it's the result of a good training by my mother and lots of years of experience. I wasn't always so skilful!

And the indulgences? Good wine at the weekend and top quality olive oil and parmeggiano.

We don't throw much food away at all. Try to use up leftovers creatively as possible and freeze things (like bananas that have gone a bit over to make into cakes or smoothies at a later date. We have got a compost bin (except bumble bees keep taking up residence in it). We feed veg scraps like broccoli stems to the rabbit!

Our local council has a food waste collection scheme but we tend to the compost bin.

Throw things away if they have gone rotten or a very out of date - but try not to get to that point. Mainly throw away uncooked food, it is was safe to do so would freeze cooked food.

Try to use up things. Bits of bread used for breadcrumbs, sad bits of fruit made into smoothies or muffins. Try to stick to a meal plan as food is so expensive. If I have veg that is a bit on the turn I make it into soup and freeze it.

Yes I know you can recycle teabags.

As a rule we put out one small bio-dregradable bag from the kitchen caddy for food waste collection each week. Its mostly peelings from veg or potatoes and tea bags, very little cooked food as I tend to just cook enough for two or will split a meal and freeze half for another day. If I make a jug of gravy I freeze whats left and use it in stews or shephards pies.

I buy those green bags for use in the fridge (£1 for 10 but I wash them out and reuse them countless times) that keep my vegs and salad very fresh and last for ages when they are stored in them so I don't really waste much at all.
We make some of our bread but if I have any stale I freeze it and when there is a bagful I make a huge bread pudding and give half to one of my daughters the kids love it.

One thing if you really are a busy busy household , frozen vegs are almost as good as fresh and there is less waste so if you constantly have veg going off maybe switch to frozen or tinned vegs that way it all gets used and no peelings.. as I'm retired I prefer fresh but I know its time consuming for some who are short of time. I've never really found a use for potato peelings and we do eat a lot of potatoes.. they are OH's favourite veg sadly.

We had to get rid of our compost bin after it was colonised by rats but we throw away very little food. We eat leftovers and plan menus ahead. I think 'sell by' and 'eat by' and 'best before' stamps on food are very misleading. Some foods will last almost indefinitely if stored properly yet all have 'best before' dates. I realise that supermarkets and food processing organisations are covering themselves and I suppose it's no disadvantage to them if people throw away perfectly edible food and buy more! 'Once opened eat within X days' is also misleading.

Any vegetable waste goes to the chickens. Their waste plus bedding goes to compost which is used on the allotment. Any meat, fish, etc waste goes to the dogs. The odd things neither will eat eg onion and banana skins goes for composting. Bones are burnt and added to compost. Could probably dispose of the MIL most organic waste using this system.

People raised in the 50s and 60s like me have usually acquired well developed aversion to food waste antennae. It makes me shudder to think of what we must have put in land fill before kerb side collections got properly underway. But it is still hard to avoid the BOGOF deals that risk waste, or the packaging in giant packs. I freeze as much as possible and make cakes and new dishes out of leftovers. But what of the throwaway generation? I wrote a blog in a month long alphabet challenge on food waste susanclow.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/q-for-quality-or-quantity.htm And another on use by dates as like other commentators they are often a marketing ploy in these days of efficient fridges.

This is our first week here on a new scheme - food waste recycling. Up to now we have had two bins, one for general garbage and the other for paper, plastic and bottles. Now we have a small black bin, and a sort of caddy into which food wast goes, before being put in the black bin... my brain hurts...

I hope egg-shells are OK... and gin-sodden lemon slices...

My gin-sodden lime slices go into the compost bin feetlebaum as do all veg peelings.
We waste almost nothing.
I plan menus and always look to see what can be used up before buying more food.
I use up stale bread in fruit or vegetable charlottes, cheese puddings or fried eggy bread.
I make meringues with left-over egg whites.
I often cut a fresh loaf in half and freeze half so it will be fresh when we want it.
I freeze left-overs and use them for lunches or when one if us is out and I need a single portion.
The council doesn't have a food bin - just as well as mine would be empty!

We buy just sufficient food for our daily consumption.
There is next to no cooked food wasted.
We are not put off by certain food being beyond it's use-by date.
We have a very small freezer and use half a loaf at a time.
Vegetable peelings and coffee grounds are put into our green recycle bin.
Teabags are used more than once and then used on the garden.
Being aware that starvation is rife in this world, we owe it to ourselves and others, to appreciate our good fortune and not to be wasteful.

We do not throw food away.Two years ago when we got the food recycling bins we were given a six month supply of plastic bags for it. About half of mine remain unused.

How do we do it? The ways other people mention. Plan menus, shop to a list.
Portion control so that we eat what we put on our plates. Cook in bulk and then freeze for later use. Bread is kept in the freezer and slices taken out as needed. Also meat is bought as ready-diced, boneless, or mince so that the only uncompostable food waste we have is chop bones, bacon rinds and fish skin and those not most weeks. A couple of times a year there will be a chicken carcase, stripped bare and used to make stock before discarding.

If a change of circumstances means some food may not be used, it is frozen directly or reprocessed and frozen. All vegetable trimmings and vegetable matter (including tea bags, egg shells and light cardboard packaging and bits of paper) go on the compost heap.

I cook from scratch because I find it quicker and easier than fiddling round with ready meals trying to make them tasty.

I have no time for the 'busy lives no time to cook' argument. I worked for most of my children's childhood and we had a home cooked family meal each night and I was not a slave to the kitchen. All that was needed was planning a large casserole dish and a cooker with a delay cooking facility. DS and DiL both work but most nights they prepare a home cooked meal for them and the children. Different pattern of cooking to me, lots of pasta dishes, stir frys and traybakes. They take no more time to cook than preparing ready meals all round.

As far is bread is concerned, I only make small loaves - 400g ones - and I can use one of those before it gets too stale to use!

To get philosophical about the issue,to begin with only those who are efficient food managers will reply to this thread. I think anyone who buys stacks of ready meals, eats a bit and throws the rest away would be intimidated about posting on this thread.

More widely I and I expect a number of other contributors were born before and during WWII and food was rationed in our early years. Our mothers, mainly, learnt to be very careful and economical with food and nothing was wasted. I can remember the paper that butter and lard was wrapped in being kept to grease baking tins. Milk was not homogenised and the top of the mike was used instead of that unaffordable and unavailable luxury, cream. If milk went off it was left to curdle and separate and hung outside the back door in a muslin cloth to drain to provide us with cottage cheese.

Even when food came off ration and even in households where the main wage-earner was in a professional job, money was still tight and families could not afford waste. My father was an army officer and for our family of five breakfast was something on one slice of toast; spaghetti, baked beans, eggs, cheese. One standard tin of beans would provide breakfast for all of us. Lunch was our main meal as my father usually came home then and the evening meal was bread and butter with jam, marmite fish paste etc and one slice of cake, 2 on Sundays. We didnt eat between meals, sweets were bought from our pocket money and potato crisps were something seen in small bowls at parties.

Recently we have had several years when weather has affected harvests and we have begun to see prices go up and some items in short supply. Perhaps it will persuade people that food is a precious commodity to be saved and used wisely, not something to be bought incase its needed and then thrown out. With so much food poverty in the world it makes me physically ill to see people ordering large portions of food in restaurants and after sampling a bit of most dishes leaving most of it to go to waste.

Throughout our married life we have always been aware of waste and have strived to have our waste cut to a minimum at all times.
Now that the children have all gone and set up their own homes we still strive to keep waste as low as possible.I only buy veg that is in season and will buy just the right amount I need,I never buy prepacked veg just loose and shop at markets taking just the one bag with me that I have used for years.
Potato peeling when I have them are put in the oven for roasting and nibbled on as a late night snack,carrot peeling go to DS2s rabbit and if there is any veg ever left it goes into a soup for either that day or frozen into cup sized portions.
Bread if bought is split into two and one half frozen by the time you have taken it out of the freezer and started to make a sandwich it has defrosted.
I cook everything from scratch and have brought up my family to do the same,even little ones now think before they discard anything.Even newspapers if bought are swopped with neighbours before disgarding into pile collected for the dogs home where they are used for insulating the kennels during the winter.Our council has a very very good policy on recycling but our recycle bin is never never more than a quarter full after 2 weeks and that is shared with my downstairs neighbour.

We throw away almost none because we buy to cook and eat what we cook. Home compostable waste (including tea bags) goes onto our compost heap; the rest goes in a caddy, the contents of which the council collects each week. It is mainly stale bread, egg shells, fish skin, the odd bone, meat fat, cheese rind and, very occasionally, food past its use-by date. We waste very little. One way to achieve this is to buy to a weekly menu and, when buying, to match use-by dates (as far as possible) to that weekly menu. If your eating is unpredictable, adapt by buying less perishable food and keeping a selection of food in the freezer. Achieving low waste will be easier for some than others, depending on circumstances, but preparing only as much as you require should be commonsense for all.

We don't have leftover food. We eat what we cook. Feeding chickens and making compost takes care of vegetable waste. Shopping follows careful list making. We grow as much as we can and surplus vegetables as well as garden plants are bartered with self-sufficiency friends for joints of pork as we are no longer young or fit enough to rear our own pigs. Our chickens provide us with eggs and surplus cockerels are reared for the table.
We bake our own bread and fill the freezer with fruit from our small orchard.

Like others on here I was brought up never to waste food. I know people who happily throw away anything that's a day over the use by date even though it's probably perfectly edible. Their ears to be closed to my protests.

I sometimes think that people will never change their wasteful habits unless they are faced with real deprivation.

We have grown our own fruit and veg and herbs since we acquired a garden 40 years ago. Also started a compost bin at the same time for all vegetable and garden waste, including T Bags, coffee grounds, egg shells. Potato peelings are dried and put at the back of the fire (said to help clean the chimney). Always have a pot of soup on the go and add left over cooked veg to the pot. Keep a bag in the freezer for odd bits of veg from garden when there is not enough for a portion. This becomes soup in the winter. Do the same with odd handfuls of fruit which later become fresh fruit salad or go in a trifle. Meat scraps, fish skin go out for 'visiting cat' and stale bakery items go in the bird feeder. Our council is soon to supply food caddies and bins but I don't think we will have anything to put in them!

Only food waste we have is bought fruit which starts hard and suddenly goes bad without every being ripe - this seems to happen quite often nowadays - and the odd 'use by' accidental over purchase. When you only shop once a week it is hard to find meat/fish that is long dated enough to last until days 5 and 6. We are supposed to buy fresh for days 1 to 4 and have something from the freezer at the end of the week but sometimes make mistakes!

Best Tips? 1. Check fridge and freezer just before heading out for the weekly shop to see what you still have, so that you do not buy duplicates and can buy what you need to make a meal out of what you already have.
2. Eggs getting close to use by date? Make a big Spanish Omlette, only needs potatoes + onions (or chives, or herbs, or mushrooms) serve hot with crusty bread and next day cold with salad.

As a single gran I feel I do waste food - it runs out of sell by use dates before I can eat it all. I would LOVE a part of the supermarket where food is packaged for single people. I know I can get veg etc that I choose how much but meat is a problem. And yes - I do cook and freeze. Also - those bogof offers get me every time! I buy two and waste the second.

I am amazed I am the only person brave enough to admit to waste. Come on the rest of you - surely there are more that will make me feel less guilty. Meanwhile I will try to learn from other blogs - I admire you all. I would love chickens but am bird phobic so that won't do.

I have a compost heap for peelings , a guinea-pig next door eats cucumber ends and the likes of cauliflower outside leaves , a couple of cats pass by for chicken skin and gristle, the birds eat fat soaked in stale bread and unusably-over-ripe fruit , and I put all left-over bits of raw and cooked vegetables / herbs /baked beans in the freezer for soup [ I think I can honestly say no 2 soups are ever the same in THIS house ! ].

There is little excuse for wasted food. I believe the best meals are made up of all the odds and ends left in the fridge ie a mixed grill using a couple of sausages, couple of rashers of bacon, left over mash/potatoes and any thing else like tomatoes etc you might have left over in the fridge. Bread which is not quite so fresh can be made into bread & butter pudding or turned into breadcrumbs for various other meals and put into the freezer for a later date. It's a good idea to keep your bread in the freezer and just take out enough to use each day and if you are making lunches especially in the summer, a good idea is to use frozen sliced bread, so that by the time you are ready to eat the sandwich it has thawed out and has kept fresh and cool.

I try very hard not to waste food. I cook most meals from scratch. Vegetable peelings go to the chickens. Left over veg goes to make soup, or into a casserole or curry. Luckily DH loves veg curry. Left over meat goes into pies, casseroles, sandwiches....I try hard to get the portions right so there are no left overs unless it is something I want to be able to use up another day. (Lasagne, curry, chilli etc always taste even better the following day). If milk or butter/spread goes past it's sell buy, I make scones and cakes with it. The microwave and aga are great for refreshing old bread rolls, tea cakes and our chickens/geese love them anyway. I'm not perfect however and do sometimes find bowls of unidentified leftovers covered in cling film lurking at the back of the fridge!

The statistics about the amount of food waste appalls me. Someone else is wasting a great deal of my share!

Supermarkets are really bad at this with their insistence on "good looking produce perfect in size and shape." and the use by date on most long lasting packaged fruit and veg should be removed.

We are vegetarian. I throw away very little food indeed, 99% goes on our compost heap.

Our local council does not yet collect food waste but collects all other green waste.

After peeling, most of the food that I don't eat gets composted. These are such things as pieces of old veg from the back the fridge, or forgotten leftovers in a covered bowl in the fridge.

I cut out "bad bits" in veg unless its too far gone, rather than throw the whole thing away.

I am not obssessed with sell by dates on food. It might be harder to do that with meat and such, but the use by dates they put on vegtables etc are ridiculous. You need to use judgement and common sense.

The best way of not wasting food is not to buy or cook too much in the first place.

Use up leftovers for lunches etc, or think about what you could put with them to make a proper meal.
Freeze the freezable things for later use. Even small packs of extra rice or lentils etc can be frozen and come in useful to quickly add bulk to a soup or something.

I wonder what results this survey would get from mum's net.

As many have observed, most of us were raised by parents who lived through war time rationing and shortages and learnt how to cook. We did not grow up with a ready supply of readymade and take away foods!

Full food rationing finally ended in about 1954ish I understand.

Talking about this at work, a couple of years ago, there were a lot of younger people who were very worried about exceeding sell by dates.