20 Ways To Waste Less Food

* This is a sponsored post for Love Food Hate Waste *
If you hate wasting food and essentially throwing money in the bin, then take a look at these 20 Ways To Waste Less Food. No more throwing away mouldy bread or over ripe bananas and definitely no throwing away bunches and bunches of herbs. We have tips to help you reduce your food shopping budget and to help the environment too.

We have teamed up with Love Food Hate Waste to share with you 20 Ways To Waste Less Food. With it being the beginning of lent in a few days, instead of promising yourself that you will give up chocolate and wine (that sounds pretty boring to me), why not commit to giving up wasting so much food. Not only will you be doing something great for your wallet, it is something good for the environment too.

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Love Food Hate Waste is a charity that encourages people to love and enjoy their food, and also to try to waste less of it at home. It's a positive initiative which helps with useful tips, recipes and advice about ways to better plan, prepare, portion and store food - like that eternal dilemma of where should you store ketchup??

Over the next 40 days, they are challenging you to make small changes at home, like using up leftovers, portioning better, meal planning, preparation, longer lasting storage, etc. Each week they will have a different theme to help you waste less food, so head over to their website and take a look at their tips and stay on track over lent with giving up food waste! "Give Up Binning Food Instead!"

Take a look at our new video that shows you how to put these tips in to action!

In the UK in 2015 alone, £13 billion of edible food was thrown away from our homes. In total 7.3 million tonnes of food was thrown away, which if prevented, would have the environmental benefit of taking one in four cars off the road. Wow! Don't you want to be a part of that environmental impact? Take the 40 day Love Food Hate Waste Challenge and over the next 7 weeks they will help you with meal planning, storage, how to make the most of your fridge and food labels. Here is the focus for each of the weeks:

1st March (week 1) Meal planning – when’s this for?
8th March (week 2) Storage – where should I put this?
15th March (week 3) Fridge focus – how do I make the most of my fridge?
22nd March (week 4) Portioning – how much should I use?
29th March (week 5) Food labels – what does this mean?
5th – 13th April (week 6/7) Leftovers – what can I do with my ingredients?

In the mean time, take a look at our 20 Ways To Waste Less Food:

Plan Your Meals

I know that not everyone is big into meal planning and it can be difficult if you have an erratic schedule, but I have found that if I know exactly what I am going to be making throughout the week, then I know exactly what and how much I need to buy, so there is not extra food leftover.

Treat Asparagus and Celery like flowers

By storing asparagus and celery root end down in water will help to keep them crisper for longer. They also make a great modern alternative to a bunch of flowers!

What to do with stale bread

Any bread that has gone a bit stale, but is still free from mould, can be turned into croutons. Simply cut the bread into cubes, drizzle with oil, season and bake at 200°C/Gas 6 for 10 minutes. Use them on salads or in soups.

Know What The Dates On Food Mean

When looking at when your food goes off, make sure you know the difference between sell by, best before and use buy. However, I think that sometimes those dates are used by supermarkets to create more waste, so you have to buy more. So, I always use sight and smell.

What to do with left over coconut milk.

Pour into an ice cube tray and freeze. The frozen cubes can be dropped into curries and soups while they are cooking to add a bit of creaminess.

How to store a cut pineapple

By turning the pineapple upside down it will redistribute the sugars, that have accumulate at the bottom of the fruit during shipping to flow through the fruit. This will make it sweeter all the way through, so no more bitter parts to throw away.

How to keep bananas fresh for longer

Bananas naturally emit ethylene gas during ripening. To slow this process, wrap the stems in foil. It is important to be aware that bananas can hasten the ripening of fruit that they are stored with, so keep them separate to prolong the life of other fruit.

What to do with too many bananas

If you do end up with too many bananas, you can either add them to your smoothie bags, or make banana bread with it and freeze it. Also, try making my 2 minute health chocolate ice cream.

How to use left over herbs

Finely chop any left over herbs and put them in ice cube trays. Fill the trays with olive oil and freeze. Like the coconut milk cubes, these frozen oily-herb cubes can be used in many dishes like stews, risottos, soups and pasta dishes.

Have a few grapes left?

If you have grapes in the fridge that will go off before you get chance to eat them, place them in an ice cube tray and freeze. Use them to chill wine without diluting it. They also make a great cold snack.

How to store carrots

Carrots can spoil very quickly if left out of the fridge. You can keep fresh, raw, peeled carrots wrapped in foil in the fridge. Stored like this, they will last up to two weeks.

What to do with vegetable peelings

All those vegetable peelings and cut tops and ends can be saved. Put them in a bag and freeze. Keep adding to the bag each time you cut/peel your veg and when the bag is full, you can use it all to make vegetable stock. After all, all those peels and ends are full of nutrition.

Use frozen fruit and vegetables

If you find yourself always wasting fresh fruit and vegetables, then try buying it frozen. Not only does frozen usually work out cheaper, but it is just as nutritious. Frozen veg lasts for months and months in the freezer, you only use what you need and because it is frozen there are no preservatives needed for them.

Make Smoothie Bags

You buy some strawberries and 30 seconds later, or what feels like it, they are going bad. I feel your frustration. If I know I am not going to be able to eat all the fruit I have, then I chop it up and separate it in to portions in freezer bags and then freeze. Then, in the morning I can just throw it in my blender with some milk/water and some kind of protein like nut butter and I have a fast and delicious smoothie and no waste!

How to stop avocados from going brown

Liberally rub the flesh of an avocado with lemon or lime juice to prevent the oxidisation which turns avocados brown.

How to prevent potatoes from sprouting

Potatoes can start sprouting quite quickly. However, if they are stored with an apple, the ethylene gas emitted by the apple, will slow down the sprouting process. If you do have potatoes that have sprouted beyond help, throw them in a bucket half filled with compost. When shoots appear, cover with more compost. Repeat covering the shoots until the bucket is full. After a few months, when the final shoots have flowered and wilted, get digging! Your one, old, sprouting potato will now be lots of new potatoes!

Use up all those spring onions (scallions)

Chop up the onions and put into an empty water bottle. Store in the freezer and simply pour some out the next time you make a stir-fry.

Best way to store open jars

Jars of all kinds of things can sit in the fridge for months as the contents don't always need to be used immediately. This means that when you come to use it, mould could have formed and the whole jar gets thrown away. By storing jars upside down, the contents sink down and it creates an airtight seal, preventing mould from growing.

Love Food Hate Waste app

Use the Love Food Hate Waste app. It creates recipes based on the food you have in your kitchen. You can keep track of your shopping - when you bought it and when it needs using by. It has a 14 day meal planner and handy portion planner, plus easy to use shopping lists.

Shop smart

Make a list of what you need and stick to it. Don't fall into the 'bulk buy' trap. That huge box of banana might be on offer, but if you can't use all of them, they will go to waste. Shop more often. Rather than doing one big shop each week, do a smaller one every few days. You will end up with less waste as you are only buying things for the next couple of days

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**This post about Ways To Waste Less Food was commissioned by Love Food Hate Waste, however, all opinions are my own**