Signs That Help Reduce Food Waste
The topic of food waste has never been more serious in 2018. We now see authorities and organisations fight for food waste and try to come up with solutions that involve our everyday life.
Governments put efforts to change misleading labels on products and entrepreneurs started new businesses such as rescuing food from the restaurants and selling it at a discounted price or choosing to make food out of wonky veggies that could have been wasted.
As we all know food waste comes in a variety of forms and some of them are currently tackled at a large scale such as collaborating with restaurants and supermarkets. However, do you know that actually 70% of food waste in the UK comes from household?
Fresh produce like vegetables, salads, meat is binned because they are not used in time and this accounts for 70% of household food waste.
It might be nothing if we discuss waste coming from one home but it’s awfully shocking if you imagine piles of piles of waste gathered from thousands of houses and dumped in the landfill.
So, how can we improve this situation? I believe we need a creative strategy that can help people deal with these foods before they go to the very rotten stage. Yet, before that, you know there are some SIGNS telling you that you might waste food in the near future.
Let’s start with, why did we throw food away?
"They’ve gone bad and it didn’t seem edible anymore."
Then, why have they gone bad?
"Well…I did want to cook but I have been busy." (True!)
"I planned to cook but I happened to have lots of gatherings this week, which was unexpected. " (True!)
"The ingredient came with a big pack but I actually just want some, I didn’t have choices." (True again)
(Some supermarkets don’t offer loose options)
I believe there are many more causes behind it. If you feel like those scenarios are like a deja vu, then I would say good for you! Now you will be able to plan your meals and groceries mindfully. These signs will hit you to remind you of not to waste food in your daily life.
If it’s too late to get these signs, then as suggested before, we can use a creative strategy to help us avoid causing food waste.
By learning from small businesses and entrepreneurs, I see the easiest way to sort this problem is to see the inner beauty of food. If the appearance of the food bothers you, you make them disappear! All you need is a blender. If you don’t have one, perhaps put it on your next Christmas wish list?
Here are my six zero-food-waste cooking tips I find them useful.
1. DIP them
2. SOUP them
3. JUICE them
4. BROTH them
5. JAM them
6. SAUCE them
Basically, we cook all the ingredients in bulk as they are going bad pretty soon. Saving some ingredients till next time wouldn’t be a good idea since, by the time you cook, they probably have rotten already. You can freeze your cooked food and defrost it when needed.
The homemade ready-to-eat food can fill in with the scenarios like:
Have some vegetable sticks with a dip during a work break.
Get some toasts and jam when in a hurry in the morning.
Soup with bread for dinner after an exhausting workday.
With food education and advocacy, an increasing number of people know that the look of the food does NOT determine its taste. Ugly ones look intimidating, but they are still tasty. Old ingredients seem bad but inside they are still edible and delicious. Try to use your senses to smell, to taste a bit then you decide those foods destiny, whether to bin them or not.
Note that if you see moulds cover the food, or see the ingredient has grown with fungus or something you have never seen. Then sadly, please BIN them.
I hope the suggested cooking tips and scenarios can inspire you to develop some ideas and motivate you to become a home master of zero food waste!
Do you have any zero-food-waste tips? I'd love to hear it!
Thank you for reading. See you in the next story!
