7 Easy Ways To Reduce Your Food Waste

Everyone can reduce their food waste. Here are some quick, easy tips to get you started.

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As we all wake up to our global food waste issues and are bombarded with stats (like UK households wasting £13 billion worth of food every year, according to WRAP), the problem can seem insurmountable.

But there are lots of small changes you can make at home to stop wasting food that mount up.

Anna Pitt, author of Leftover Pie: 101 ways to reduce your food waste, shares some easy ways to stop food waste at home.

1. Shop your cupboards

Open your kitchen cupboards and you might be surprised to see just how much food you already have. The first step in reducing food waste is only to buy what you need and that’s much easier when you take an inventory of what you’ve already bought.

Make a list of everything in your cupboards, veg rack and even your freezer, then plan meals around the ingredients you find.

When you do need to top up, try and use zero waste shops or veg delivery boxes and only buy what you need.

Click here for our ultimate guide to the UK’s zero waste shops .

2. Go gleaning

A third of the food grown on this planet never reaches a human stomach.

Much of this waste is created because produce – although perfectly delicious and nutritious – is considered the wrong size, shape or colour by supermarkets.

In the UK, the Gleaning Network was set up to combat this waste.

It coordinates volunteers to harvest the unsold crops and pass onto charities such as FareShare and FoodCycle who then redistribute to people who need it (and there are other gleaning networks elsewhere).

Image Chris King

3. Discover food waste apps

Food sharing apps are growing. These match people with food to give away with people who want it. Imagine you’ve got food left over after a dinner party or are off on holiday and won’t get through everything.

Instead of throwing that food away, you can offer it on an app like Olio and someone will come and collect it. Not only do these apps reduced waste but they help rebuild communities too.

Discover more apps that can help you save the world here.

4. Practice portion control

While it’s not as high tech as food sharing apps, good old portion control is an easy way to combat food waste at home.

It’s always tempting to make more than you need or not be bothered to measure out rice or pasta.

Generally a mug of pasta or half a mug of rice per person is sufficient.

BUPA recommend that a lean meat portion is the size of a deck of cards.

Know your own appetite when you cook and experiment with different amounts.

5. Get your dates right

Many people throw away food that has reached its best before date, but this can lead to unnecessary waste.

The only date you need to adhere to for safety reasons is the use by date. You’ll see the use by date on some meat products and ready prepared salads.

The best before date is simply a guideline and is not related to safety. All it means is that after that date the food may change colour, taste or texture, but it is perfectly safe to eat.

6. Grow your own

Growing your own herbs or vegetables isn’t as daunting as you think. Start small with basil or chillis if you like and get a feel for it.

There are plenty of things you can grow with only a windowsill or a small amount of space. Tomatoes don’t need much room or you can even grow strawberries in a hanging basket.

Growing and tending your own food tends to give you more of an appreciation of the time and effort farmers put into to getting crops to your table – and it saves money.

7. Create some compost

There are clearly some bits of food that you can’t, or don’t want to eat, such as some vegetable peelings, core, pips or stalks.

Composting is a fantastic way to keep food out of landfill and helps you grow plants, herbs or veggies.

Invest in a countertop compost bin and a small scale composter or even let some worms do all the hard work with a wormery.

If you don’t have room to compost at home, some county councils offer food waste collections.

Leftover Pie: 101 ways to reduce your food waste shares 101 recipes from chefs, bloggers and food waste campaigners as well as going into detail about the history of food waste, why we create the waste we do and lots of ideas on how to reduce it. Buy your copy here.