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We only recently started having a food bin supplied by the Council & I am amazed at how little I throw away. I have always hated wasting food, having had a father who was a POW in Burma during WW2 & starved for a long time- he got very upset about wasted food understandably.
We have a wormery & that gets everything except meat/fish & bones & turns it into compost. I can thoroughly recommend wormeries.
We have a dog- she eats any meat or fish leftover which is not much anyway.
Bones get made into stock first & then binned.
Bread gets made into breadcrumbs & frozen or given to birds or worms if I have a lot already in the freezer.
I do freeze leftovers if they will make another meal- maybe for me if DH is away.
However it is still a pain that it is large bags of potatoes & carrots that seem to hang around- OK I make them into soup but sometimes (mid summer?) I don't really want loads of soup.
It is often the case that a bag of carrots is half the price of buying them loose & I never take BOGOFs if I don't need 2 things.
I do wish they would ban BOGOFs & just halve the price of things.

Smaller portions of pre-packaged food would be a great help- It is fine buying a large bag of something if you have the space to freeze it but I would much prefer to buy the amount I need rather than have to think what I am going to do with the remainder.

We only throw out meat waste (bones after stock has been made, fish skin/bone crab shells), and little of that, because our council is only now toying with food waste bins. I'm a bit concerned that if the proposed waste incinerator goes ahead they will only pay lip service to recycling as the beast will need feeding. (Stop it - different soap box!).

After reading through this thread again I think it makes it all the more important that we do pass on our skills to the new generation, both my daughters are pretty well following my footsteps and keep waste down to a minimum , they too freeze bread and only defrost what is needed for that day. I'm going to make a real effort to make my 3 granddaughters aware of the need not to waste food too they are part of the throw-away society and will only learn by our example.

I agree bogoff is a problem and now refuse to buy at all rather than have 2. Especially since I heard it is the poor supplier looses out not the supermarket.

Plastic boxes for storing leftovers helps.

I don't live a very organised life, so planning meals ahead all sounds a bit cold blooded to me. I like a bit of Spontaneity, so tend to cook from what I have in the fridge and my husband makes the soups. If you plan your meals what happens if their is a get a change of plan or last minute invitaition, or you spend hours talking to friends.
Our council has a good recycling scheme, luckily as people in flats can't feed the chickens.

Our food waste goes into a caddy which is emptied weekly by our local council (and then to the Anaerobic Digestion plant). We have 2 freezers, one in the kitchen and a small chest freezer in the cellar...and we make good use of them. Most of our food waste is tea bags, coffee grounds, peelings and egg shells but, I have to admit, that occasionally we do have to throw away something that has 'gone off' . We only buy BOGOF if we can use/freeze/give away to family. I have a list of all the food in both freezers on the front of the kitchen fridge and cross off food as it is used...makes it easier to see what we need when we go shopping. There is also a list of 'use by dates' of food in the fridge. All bread goes straight into the freezer and we only take out what we need that day. Any veggies that need using up get made into soup and frozen. I'd rather use my common sense that rely on the dates put on food packaging so we often purchase marked down as 'out of date' food.

One solution with BOGOF's is to pass the additional one on to a passing mum once past the tills. I've never had a problem with finding a willing recipient although it can raise a scowl from the manager,

I was a war baby & learnt from my mother never to waste food. She even made soup out of left over quiche. I don't worry too much about out of date products. We have a good recycle collection once a week & it is simple once you know how. I look in the fridge & see what is left over & work a recipe around it.

I refuse to feel guilty but I do admit to waste depending on what's been happening in my life. I plan menus for the week - but also have something in stock just in case of an invasion which invariably occurs but not regularly enough to plan. They don't eat as much as anticipated of course and hey presto! there is waste. Not everything can be frozen after all. I also get extremely tired and in spite of trying my best there are times when I think sod it and have a take away and later find the original bits for a meal rotting in the fridge. Thinking back, I take after my mother. She was the same. She ate very little, kept a stock for any visitors, and chucked stuff out. Yep, it can be expensive but it is satisfying and a relief not to have to rush round like a demented hen should someone call. Mind you nine times out of ten they choose the one day when I've just catered for the 2 of us

We have food waste collection and I suppose I get through one little compost bag [it has to be a brown paper one!!] every couple of days. Which reading through what I've written isn't so bad really.

Throwing food away is, to me, irresponsible. But of course I do, from time to time, expecially if something is past its "use by" date, i.e. when I've been irresponsible and my menu plan has collapsed, again! I really should have learned by my age - and I think I have, actually - but these days "carpe diem" is a priority for me so I don't succumb to guilt if I'm distracted by something rather more joyful than an ageing fillet of haddock in the fridge.

I'm afraid I've never got used to being on my own. I therefore throw a lot of food away as past it's BBd. It either goes into the council caddy or for my cleaners chickens! They're the best fed chickens around. They seem to love things like beef stroganoff and sphaggetti bolognese.

I never waste food. Anything left gets frozen or used the next day. Leftover veg is made into 'bubble and squeak', or popped in beside the next day's meal, depending on what it is. The council provided a little brown bin, in which go eggshells, veg peelings, teabags, plate scrapings, bones, etc. The bags that are provided to line the bins break down naturally and are easily tied up before putting in the bin that garden waste goes into. All of this is then composted by the council.
I go by the 'rule of nose' to know when food might be going off, but I can't remember when that last happened. I also can't remember when I last bought processed food or anything from a 'chill' cabinet.
We do treat ourselves to an Indian takeaway every couple of weeks or so, though (you see, I need the little plastic boxes that it comes in, so I can freeze my leftovers!)

We do try to shop carefully, but I can't say we never have food waste. It goes, in order of priority, to the hens, the wormery, the compost heap and the Green Cone (waste digester) which is rat-proof so will cope with meat and fish and things like egg and milk in the winter. Our council takes food waste in the garden waste bin but the only food waste we ever put in there is potato peelings and inedible bits of potatoes from our own garden, so as not to spread any diseases. However, the other day a friend told me that if you boil up potato and other peelings, and add some oatmeal, the hens love it, and I am planning to try it. We are lucky enough to have a garden big enough for all this, and I am aware that many people are not so lucky.

Our council do not yet take kitchen waste which is a surprise as they have been very good in general. We don't waste much at all as I do menu planning and check what we have in the fridge before I shop.

I agree about having the ability to be flexible and always leave one day out of my planning and then I can change when we have planned meals. Any days without a planned meal can then be a takeaway, an omelette or fritatta, occasional ready meal from the freezer or something that I have already made and frozen eg lasagne, chili, shepherds pie, curry, coq au vin. Having had a big family, I don't feel right cooking casseroles etc for only one meal so always double or treble up and freeze in portions for one and for two people. I try to cook something to freeze every week or so to replenish stocks. Of course the children know this and the ones who live close quite often ring up and ask what's in the freezer that they can 'steal'.

One thing that we do waste is the ends of cartons of juice. We always have one in the fridge but rarely get to the bottom of it before it's gone fizzy and yeuk