Do you throw away lots of food?

I used to work for a restaurant who had mountains of food waste from customers so the owner would feed it to pigs and then feed the pigs to the customers so there was zero waste in a way.

I had no idea until later on that it was illegal, it seemed like such a good solution lol. People loved that bacon, the pigs loved the food and the owner had low costs to keep the pigs and no food waste.
 
dave28 said:
I used to work for a restaurant who had mountains of food waste from customers so the owner would feed it to pigs and then feed the pigs to the customers so there was zero waste in a way.

I had no idea until later on that it was illegal, it seemed like such a good solution lol. People loved that bacon, the pigs loved the food and the owner had low costs to keep the pigs and no food waste.
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Do you know why it's illegal? Seems crazy.
 
One More Solo said:
Absolutely, but I was addressing his point that wasting “his” food doesn’t impact other people. It absolutely does. Look at southern Spain. Covered in plastic and using millions of gallons of water so the rest of Europe can have out of season veg all year round. How much of that ends up in the bin? It’s shocking.



There’s enough unnecessary packaging on ready meals etc without turning a serves 4 meal into 4 lots of serves 1. Don’t you own some plastic containers or cling film you could use to save the other portions and have another time? It’s not exactly beyond the wit of man to cook extra food and have it for lunch or dinner later in the week.
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No I cant, I don’t eat the same food. Once I have something like sausage and mash, I won’t want it again for another month or so, so the leftovers have to go. And I cant freeze everything as I just don’t have the space.
 
I'd say we have very little. We plan our weekly meals in advance and make stuff fresh and so only buy what we need for that week.

As above, the only stuff we'll throw away is if something goes off a little earlier than expected, but that's rare as Waitrose stuff usually last ages vs Aldi/Lidl produce. I've eaten apples 3 weeks after buying them and they still have a crunch.
 
robfosters said:
No I cant, I don’t eat the same food. Once I have something like sausage and mash, I won’t want it again for another month or so, so the leftovers have to go. And I cant freeze everything as I just don’t have the space.
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Pretty sure you are just trolling at this stage, or being intentionally difficult. I simply refuse to believe you eat 90 unique meals a month. Even so, there are ways around this that don't require intentional waste.
 
One More Solo said:
Pretty sure you are just trolling at this stage, or being intentionally difficult. I simply refuse to believe you eat 90 unique meals a month. Even so, there are ways around this that don't require intentional waste.
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It’s not intentional. I try to eat everything I buy, but often I can’t. I don’t eat vreakfast or lunch, just dinner, so it’s 30 meals a month
 
If you are cooking from scratch'ish, too, with the investment of time/resources, cooking additional portions to refrigerate/freeze for a subsequent day is a pleasure,
probably modifying the vegetables/carbs next days ; puddings, doubly so, bakewell/lemon meringue ....
you save massive anmounts of time on following days.
 
jpaul said:
Frozen bread never comes out as something you can eat like on the first day it was baked - nice piece of cheese/jam .... fine for toast though; re-baking/crisping doesn't work.
old bread is great for bread&butter pudding, or will crumb it &freeze for use in puddings like treacle tart.
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Yes, sorry should have made that clear.

If you have managed to make a bread with properly developed crumb structure (which even after you have a sourdough starter, might take 20 hrs or so with a pre-ferment and poolish), something like this:
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Then you don't have to eat it right away as it will freeze and should taste quite good toasted.
 
Rarely, occasionally throw away some bruised fruit or old veg if it gets stuck at the bottom of the drawer, but try to freeze or use in sauces/smoothies anything thats a bit ropey looking as it usually tastes fine underneath. Usually cook 3 or 4 portions most evenings and put leftovers in fridge/freezer for the next day or later. Think it's just me being tight though, hate wasted food.
 
robfosters said:
Supermarkets should sell more things for one person too. I like Tesco’s battered cod, but the pieces are very large and ones enough. Why can’t they sell them in 1’s instead of 2? There’s an awful lot of single people out there. Sainsbury’s are the same. Every just cook meal they do either serves 2, 4 or more. What about us single folk?
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I live alone. If I bought a pack of two fish cakes (the deep ones with a parsley sauce centre) - I eat one that day. Then freeze the other one by wrapping it in foil and write on a food bag - what it is and cooking instructions.

I never buy the small tins of baked beans for example as a normal can is only 5-10p more than half a can. Put the other half into a food storage pot in the fridge to use in the next 4-5 days.

If supermarkets do single portions, think how much more plastic is used and if, taking the fish as an example was £2.30 for 2, it will be £1.50-1.80 for one.
 
Ugh sometimes I don’t cook the food that I buy for the gym and then they become off and get chucked in the bin. Really bad habit and will definitely ensure I change that because I hate wasting food
 
Very rarely anything goes in the bin here. We do a fair amount of cooking from scratch and it’s easy to use up any leftover veg into sauces and we only generally buy what we need from a list, particularly meat.

We often cook 4+ portions of scratch made food and put the extra in the freezer alongside leftovers for future use. The small IKEA containers with yellow lids are perfectly sized for single portion leftovers.

The list is key for not wasting food IMO, it stops overbuying, stops the associated waste and cuts the cost of shopping.

like it or not, decaying food in landfill is a huge source of greenhouse and toxic gases. Just ask the locals in ‘the smell’ thread. Farming has a huge, well documented impact on the environment (think both climate change and habitat loss/damage), wasting food just accelerates that.
 
About 1/2 a loaf of bread goes in the bin once a week. That's really the only food waste I have.

Meals are pretty planned and even if something does come up then, as I defrost things in the fridge, it will stay there for another day and still be fine. Even if it stayed a further day, I wouldn't throw it away pre-sniff check.

Frozen chicken can be taken from freezer, into fridge and still be good by day 4 i.e. Freezer to fridge on Monday, still good to eat on Thursday perhaps even Friday.
 
Funnily enough I never waste bread, ever. Probably something to do with the fact that I eat toast by the bucketload. Just love it, loads of different spreads, marmite, Nutella, marmalade, curd, honey, peanut butter, jam, syrup, chutney, even nduja, the possibilities are endless.

Sainsburys banoffee caramel spread is to die for
 
robfosters said:
Funnily enough I never waste bread, ever. Probably something to do with the fact that I eat toast by the bucketload. Just love it, loads of different spreads, marmite, Nutella, marmalade, curd, honey, peanut butter, jam, syrup, chutney, even nduja, the possibilities are endless.

Sainsburys banoffee caramel spread is to die for
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Bread with marmite and bread with peanut butter = two distinct meals but you can’t eat sausages twice in a month?
 
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