More food than you could possibly imagine ends up as waste in household kitchens each year. Becoming more aware of what you chuck out and implementing a few simple actions will help you to significantly cut down on your food waste and save you money at the same time. Bokashi Bran® is an expert on reducing food waste.
7 Tips on How You Can Reduce Your Food Waste
Here are 7 tips that will help you reduce the amount of food wasted on a monthly basis. For more tips on how to reduce food waste, check out our blog.
Tip #1: BUY LESS
Fresh foods don’t last too long, even when stored properly in a fridge or vegetable cupboard and often, far too many spoiled fresh fruits and vegetables end up in the bin. Putting together a meal plan for the week, before you shop, is a great way to cut down on food waste, making sure you only buy what you need rather than buying excess ‘for just in case’.
Read Next: Responsible Food Waste Management for Commercial Kitchens
Tip #2: BUY SEASONAL AND LOCAL
The further food travels, the greater the carbon footprint, the higher the cost of the food and the more likelihood of greater food wastage along the way. Buying food in season and locally is also a great way to support local manufacturers and farmers.
Tip #3: MAKE A LIST
Research has shown that men are less likely to stick to the plan than women when shopping. Whether it’s you or your man doing the groceries, having a shopping list and sticking to it, will help you to stop buying more than necessary.
As well as using a shopping list to keep you on the straight and narrow, always make sure to have something to eat before you leave home because it’s a well-known fact that people who shop when they are feeling hungry tend to deviate from the assigned task.
Tip #4: CONTROLLED CATERING
Over-catering when hosting an event or having a get-together with family and friends is something many of us battle with as we tend to prepare more than our guests could realistically eat in fear of being judged for possibly sending them home starving. Practice shopping more conservatively and buy less than you think you might need for these events to help cut down on food waste after the fact.
Tip #5: FOOD STORAGE
Storing food properly will cut down on food waste. Instead of refrigerating leftover takeaways in the container they came in, transfer them to a sealed Tupperware so that they will still be delicious the next day.
Make sure to store any leftovers in appropriate containers and place them in an area of the fridge that makes them easier to spot so they are most likely to be consumed quickly, rather than becoming forgotten penicillin experiments at the back of the fridge.
Freezing leftovers, such as curries and stews in portion-controlled containers, is also another way to cut down on food waste, not to mention that they make an easy ‘go-to’ hearty lunch or dinner for one rather than an expensive and unhealthy takeaway.
If you realise that that head of broccoli, those fresh green beans or that bag of cauliflower florets you bought with the best of intentions might not make it to the end of the week, remember that blanched vegetables can be happily frozen for a month or so and successfully added to stews or soups.
Tip #6: CREATIVE COOKING
Use creative cooking to further reduce your food waste in the kitchen.
Use vegetable scraps, bones and chicken carcasses to make stocks packed with healthy goodness that can be frozen in portions and easily added to future soups and stews.
Fruits that are starting to get a bit past their sell-by date can be converted into delicious fruit salads, added to breakfast smoothies, made into pie fillings or reduced to compotes to jazz up a bowl of yoghurt or ice-cream.
Chop and dice vegetables that have lost their perky appeal into sauces, stews, soups or savoury mince and one-pot chicken dishes.
Turn last night’s chicken roast leftovers into tomorrow’s chicken ala-king or even chicken mayonnaise sarmies for lunch.
Give yourself the night off and hold a ‘fridge surprise evening’ once a week where everyone gets to choose something from the leftovers hanging about in the fridge.
Tip #7: COMPOST FOOD WASTE
Once you’ve successfully reduced or reused your daily food waste to the best of your ability, you can now turn everything you couldn’t use into valuable compost using the Bokashi Bran kitchen waste recycling system.
Bokashi composting is the gold standard of compost and it doesn’t discriminate. All food waste, whether cooked or uncooked can be very simply turned into nutrient-rich food for your garden in a unique fermentation process that is not only easy on your nose but is kind to the environment too.
Reduce Your Food Waste with Bokashi Bran®
Contact Bokashi Bran® today to find out more about how you can start a kitchen food waste recycling to compost program today to help you cut down on food waste.
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