Gordon Brown: Reduce Food Waste in UK

[wolram]

Our PM is telling us Brits we throw far to much food away, up to one third of what we buy,
i do not know how he found out or how true it is, i know i have to throw bread away that goes mouldy rather than stale, other than that i sure do not throw much away, so are we the only ones?

 

[B. Elliott]

Other than the occasional bits of bread that happen to expire, I waste no food whatsoever. I'm usually pretty good at gauging how quickly i'll eat food and I never buy anything excessive except for nonperishables. Eating like a horse helps, but for some reason I can't gain any weight over 140.

 

[lisab]

My family has a huge problem with this. There are only three of us in our house and we have a hard time buying small quantities of anything because stores tend to sell packages in large quantities. It leads to waste.

For example, tonight I cooked chicken wings. I bought a large package of them a long time ago, broke the big package into little packages and froze them. They got a little freezer burned ! Needless to say, they weren't very good. (I did make rice pilaf that was OK.)

 

[K.J.Healey]

The only things I ever seem to waste are :

1/4 full cartons of milk (expired before use)
1/5 of a loaf of bread (again expired before use)
1/3 of a bunch of veggies
I always use the 2/3's to make a dish of some sort, and don't get around to making another that uses it before they go bad. Mainly mushrooms, peppers and green onions.
Sometimes meats, mainly chicken that like above, I freeze half the pack after using the first half, and by the time I go to thaw it they're so burned that I would rather buy some more than use it.

My solutions :
I stopped buying milk. Only ever need it now for cooking, and I buy as I need.
Bread goes in the fridge. I don't mind it getting stale, actually I prefer it. Just not moldy.
Frozen veggies. Not as fresh, but I can buy a large assortment without worrying about spoiling them.
Freezing chicken/meat. I still have a problem with. I try not to eat meat, as I'd rather have more veggies or mushrooms anyway.

Other than that, I don't see how anyone can waste that much food. I eat all leftovers within the next 2 days (before making a new meal).

 

[wolram]

My family has a huge problem with this. There are only three of us in our house and we have a hard time buying small quantities of anything because stores tend to sell packages in large quantities. It leads to waste.

For example, tonight I cooked chicken wings. I bought a large package of them a long time ago, broke the big package into little packages and froze them. They got a little freezer burned ! Needless to say, they weren't very good. (I did make rice pilaf that was OK.)

I guess stores are to blame in some ways, like buy 2 for 1 , and family packs of every thing.

 

[lisab]

I guess stores are to blame in some ways, like buy 2 for 1 , and family packs of every thing.

Exactly!

But I can see the retailers' point of view - if you maximize your package size, you minimize your cost of packaging.

 

[B. Elliott]

I'm noticing portion sizes getting smaller and prices going up.

 

[NateTG]

I'm noticing portion sizes getting smaller and prices going up.

Well, that might help with the obesity epidemic. At least in the US, serving sizes are obscenely large.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Well, that might help with the obesity epidemic. At least in the US, serving sizes are obscenely large.

It depends. If you go to a restaurant and order a soda you will get a giant glass with free refills. If you order a nice healthy orange juice for about twice the price you will get one glass about a third the size of the soda. Its really only the unhealthy food you will often find in quantity for cheap. Seafood portions are scant and expensive (and I live right next to the ocean). I look at fruit to take to work for a snack and find that it usually costs two or three times as much as just getting a bag of chips. Rice, beans, and pasta are about the only healthy alternatives I can afford.

 

[turbo]

My wife and I discard VERY little food, and even then, as long as it is not animal products it goes right into the compost bins, not the trash. It is very difficult to shop for just two people, so we often split chickens and freeze them, split roasts (ditto) and break down large packets of ribs, chops, steaks. We have one advantage - since we have a large vegetable garden, I put up a lot of food, freezing, canning, and pickling, and can control portion sizes to match our rate of usage.

Gordon Brown may have gotten the 1/3 number by rolling restaurants and bakeries into the total. They throw away a LOT of food.

 

[Evo]

I share food with my cat and dog, so very little goes to waste. Stale bread, goes to the animals outside. I have a few ducks in the creek occasionally. Vegetable scraps go to the wild bunnies. I freeze leftovers that I do no plan to eat right away. I also don't cut vegetables like Rachel Ray where she is constantly lopping off 1/3 of the vegetable and tossing it into the trash. She is clueless when it comes to cutting vegetables.

 

[Gokul43201]

Restaurants throw away tons of food at the end of each day.

I know of only a few places, like Panera, that give away their end of day inventory to local charities/soup kitchens.

 

[Moonbear]

Restaurants throw away tons of food at the end of each day.

I think this accounts for much of the wasted food.

I know of only a few places, like Panera, that give away their end of day inventory to local charities/soup kitchens.

I wonder if that depends on the state too. Some states really put unnecessary obstacles in the way of donated perfectly good food to the hungry/homeless just because it's the day's leftovers.

I do waste more than I'd like to though. Living alone, it's hard to buy things in small enough quantities to not waste. I can never finish a loaf of bread before it goes moldy, and too often, the milk goes sour before I can finish it too. Some of the stores around here package produce rather than letting you buy just what you need from bulk bins. I try to avoid shopping in those stores for produce, but once in a while, I'm already at that shopping center and shop there instead of heading all the way across town for another grocery store. It's a pain sorting through trying to find a package of some vegetable or another that's only a single serving.

 

[WarPhalange]

Gordon Brown food? Boogers?

 

[hypatia]

If their is even a hint that food will go to waste, I take it to work. With shifts that run 24 hours a day, someone is always hungry.

 

[turbo]

When I was working shifts running a paper machine, I would do the same. There would always be someone available to clean it up, especially if someone's relief couldn't show up and they had to work overtime with no extra food. Sometimes people would show up with no lunches, expecting to eat stuff from the vending machines. They looked at free macaroni salads, casseroles, etc pretty favorably compared to cold sandwiches.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Pretty much my entire family wastes food. They always buy things that they put in the fridge or freezer and never eat. They also seem especially fond of putting away leftovers that just sit in the fridge until they are green and moldy enough to walk themselves to the trash bin. When I was at my grandparents and asked if I could borrow their minifridge for my new place my grandfather (who randomly throws my grandmother's things away to get it out of the way) told me that they had two fridges packed full of stuff and he needed the little one to have someplace to put things.

I wonder if that depends on the state too. Some states really put unnecessary obstacles in the way of donated perfectly good food to the hungry/homeless just because it's the day's leftovers.

Just imagine potential lawsuits. When I worked at the coffee house my boss actually explained the real reason why food establishments don't allow in outside food. Liability! People are insane, and many just ungrateful (or perhaps desperate) enough to sue the hand that feeds it.