Love Food Hate Waste

The Love Food, Hate Waste campaign provides everyone with helpful and practical hints and tips on how to enjoy the food we buy and cut down on the amount of good food thrown away. This includes saving the environment and creating new meals that will save your money as well as tasting great.

• In the UK we throw away 8.3 million tonnes of food and drink each year.
• When we waste food, we also waste the energy, water and packaging involved in producing, transporting and storing the food.
• Wasted food fills landfills and releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change.
• The average UK family with children throws away over £50 worth of food that was bought, but not eaten.

Help the environment and yourselves by:

Loving your leftovers

• Any leftovers can be made into great new meals that are delicious and time-saving. For great ideas and recipes for what to do with all sorts of leftovers go to the Love Food Hate Waste website. Simply type in the food you have left over and choose the recipe to suit you.
• Cook the correct amount. Many of us waste food by overestimating what we need when buying and cooking food. When cooking for a family take a few minutes to measure food out, perhaps into a favourite cup, so you get the right portion per person. Find out how to cook just what you need by using the Love Food Hate Waste portion planner.
• Keeping your fridge temperature between 1 and 5 degrees will help keep things for longer. Store items such as fruit in the fridge to make them last.
• Home composting is a great way to prevent unavoidable food waste ending up in landfill, such as peelings, cores and teabags, and they can do wonders for your garden.

Stopping before you shop

• Check you fridge and freezer for the food you already have.
• Make a shopping list with meals in mind.
• Don’t buy unnecessary special offers and multi-buys if they aren’t going to be used.
• Beware of ‘buy one get one free’ offers and only buy them if you know you will use or freeze the extra one.

 Knowing your food labels

• Do not use any food or drink after the ‘use by’ date on the label, even if it looks and smells fine. Once a food with a "use by" date on it has been opened, you also need to follow any instructions such as ‘eat within a week of opening’.
• A ‘best before’ date is advisory and tends to be applied to low-risk foods and those with a longer shelf life, such as frozen, dried and tinned foods. The ‘best before’ dates are more about quality than safety, so when the date runs out, it does not mean that the food will be harmful but it might begin to lose its flavour and texture.
• ‘Sell by’ and ‘display until’ dates often appear near or next to the ‘best before’ or ‘use by’ date. They are used by some shops to help with stock control and are instructions for shop staff, not shoppers.
• For any of the above dates to be valid guides, you must follow the storage instructions such as ‘keep in a refrigerator’.

Ten tips to help minimise food waste:

1. Have a quick check in the fridge every day and plan meals around food that needs to be used up first.
2. Check 'use by' dates and see if the product can be frozen if it cannot be eaten in time.
3. Make a shopping list ('74% of purchase decisions are made after entering the shop.' POPAI study)
4. Check fridge/freezer and store cupboards before you shop.
5. Keep your fridge between 0° to 5° Celsius for optimum effect.
6. Fruit kept in the fridge will stay fresher for longer (except bananas and whole pineapple).
7. Milk, cheese and butter can all be frozen until needed.
8. Sliced bread can be toasted from frozen.
9. Vegetables past their best can be used in soups, casseroles and chutney.
10. Put fruit and vegetable peelings, salad trimmings, etc., in a home compost bin.

For practical information and advice on enjoying the food you buy, whilst doing your bit to cut down on how much we waste, as well as meal planning and recipes to use up your leftovers, click on www.lovefoodhatewaste.com.