Food waste is in the news at the moment, with Gordon Brown urging households to cut down on the amount of food they waste each year. And whilst this seems like a bit of a political bandwagon, there certainly is room for improvement when it comes to the amount of food that is wasted each year in the UK.

It is thought that families in the UK are throwing away between 4 and 6.5 million tonnes of food each year, and much of this is perfectly edible. Averaged out, this means that each family in the country could be wasting between £400 and £600 per year on unused food. Not only are we wasting money, but we are also wasting the energy and water used in the production of the food, and adding to air pollution with the extra transportation 6 million tonnes of food needs.

According to WRAP, every day in the UK we waste:

- 5.1 Million whole potatoes
- 4.4 Million Apples
- 7 Million Slices of bread
- 0.7 Million Eggs
- 1.2 Million Sausages

And much, much more. All this wasted food is costing us £10 Billion every year!

Everyone can reduce their household food waste. It takes a bit of thought and forward planning, but once you are in the habit of not wasting food, it soon becomes second nature. Here are some simple tips to help you make the most of the food you buy.

- Plan out your weekly meals, work out the ingredients you need and make this your shopping list. If you only shop once a week, try to plan meals which have ingredients that will spoil for the days imediately following your shopping trip, with meals using frozen or less easily spoiled food later in the week.

- Go shopping for food alone, you will usually make fewer impulse buys. This isn’t always possible, but well worth considering. Also, do not go shopping when hungry. Shopping for your food online can be a good way to avoid being tempted by promotions and the smells which fill supermarkets.

- Don’t be tempted by BOGOF’s (Buy One, Get One Free) or Buy 3 for £££’s offers unless you are sure you can use the extra products. Things that can be frozen are obviously fine, as are things with a long shelf life. But only as long as you are sure they will be used.

- Buy some good quality, sealable containers. Saving left-overs to be used the next day is one of the easiest ways of reducing food waste. Things like bolognese, pasta and stews are perfect for this.

- Check your fridge regularly. Have a look at the Use By dates and see if there is anything on the edge of going off. Try to think of ways of using these items before they spoil. Omlettes, stews, salads and stir fry’s are great for using up left over food in the fridge.

- Buy some preserving bags for your fruit and veg. Preserving bags are breathable cotton bags with black (or dark) lining to stop veg sprouting. They only cost a few pounds, and could increase the shelf life of your vegetable by several days at the least. You can also buy reusable stay fresh bags to store vegetables in the fridge. These special bags actively stop moisture and bacteria forming and will certainly increase the life of fridge-stored fruit and vegetable. Both of the storage bags mentioned here are available from Lakeland and elsewhere.

- Measure out your portions. If you regularly eat a particular meal, and regularly find that there is left over food on your plates, reduce the quantities accordingly. Just because the instructions on the back of the pasta sauce (for example) says use 500G of pasta, it does not mean you have to use that much.

- Try to gradually build up a few staple foods in your cupboards. Things like rice, pasta, stock cubes, etc, which do not spoil easily. This makes it easier to create something from your left over vegetables and meat.

Use By and Best Before
There is sometimes a bit of confusion about the difference between these two dates used in food labelling.

You should never use consume food after the Use By date (unless it has been frozen on day of purchase) as this date concerns food safety. There is some debate about the validity of the Use By date, with some saying that you can safely eat food for some time after the Use By date. But it is always better to be safe than sorry.

The Best Before date concerns food quality rather than food safety. Food that has gone past the Best Before date should still be perfectly fine to eat, but it probably won’t be at its very best. Eggs are probably the one exception. Never eat eggs which are past their Best Before date.