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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

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.

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!)

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.

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 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.

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.

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,

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.

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.

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.

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!).

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.

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.

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 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!

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 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 ! ].

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.

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.

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.

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 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.