Save money on food

As its coming up to Christmas we could all do with a bit more spare cash in our wallet, right? Well did you know that the average UK family throws out approximately £550 worth of food each year! 

Shocking, isn't it?  But it's true and most of that is simply because we buy too much or cook too much and then never get round to eating it.  So one way to help avoid this is simply by planning out your meals for the week ahead in a diary, you can reduce waste because you can plan out a shopping list, so that you only buy what you really need.  

Other ways of reducing food waste are really as simple as just storing food in a different place. Two-thirds of UK households are letting fruit go to waste, simply by keeping it out in a fruit bowl whereas fruit like apples will last up to 14 days longer if kept in the fridge.  


And it's not just all about saving money.  Producing, distributing, storing and cooking food all requires energy, fuel and water which contributes to global warming.  Think of a pack of cheese for example.  The resources that go into raising the cows, processing the milk, transporting the cheese, refrigeration, the fuel we use to drive to the shop to buy it - all this to put it in the bin at the end of the week.  It's insane but it's happening all over the country right now - in fact in the UK we throw away the equivalent of more than three million slices of cheese every single day!


In Shropshire and Telford around 20% of all household waste is food waste - so that means we're producing about 40,000 tonnes of the stuff every year.  Of course now some of this is being composted or fed to pets but even if it doesn’t all end up in landfill its far better to avoid this waste in the first place.  

For more handy hints and tips visit www.lovefoodhatewaste.com