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| Image courtesy of dreamstime.com |
According to the love food hate waste website we throw away 7 million tonnes of food and drink every year and as a mum trying to feed a family on a budget I thought that it would be a good topic to cover.
It may sound silly to most but it was not until a year or so ago that I learnt what the differences between the dates on food actually meant. I use to think that they all meant that the food would not be safe to eat once the date had passed and I hate to think how much food we threw away that we didn’t actually need to!
If you see a date that says ‘use by’ then that means that you must use the food by that date as it would be unsafe to eat. However, if you see a date that says ‘best before’ you can still consume the product. The date is simply to let you know that after that date the product will no longer be at it’s best but it is still perfectly safe to eat.
More tips on less waste.
If you have meat that is going to be out of date before you can eat it, pop it into the freezer and then when you need it, just defrost it thoroughly and consume within 24 hours.
You can also freeze foods such as cheese and bananas. Bananas freeze well without there peels and if you have cheese that will run out of date just grate it and store in a zip lock bag.
Bread also freezes well and you can even keep it in the freezer just taking out slices as and when needed and put them straight into the toaster when making toast.
Survey your fridge and cupboards every week before going shopping and plan meals according to foods that need to be used up. There are some great recipes on the love food hate waste website. Also planning your meals really does help save time and money as well as help prevent food waste. For more tips on menu planning check out one of my earlier posts here.
It's awful how much gets wasted! We will eat use by products if they look/smell ok to avoid just throwing away #binkylinky
Cutting down on food waste was one of the main ways I managed to save on my monthly bills. I've got better at using up left over fresh veg and freezing stuff too. Never thought of freezing bananas though. Mine normally end up in a banana cake 😉
#binkylinky
Yeah I have a lot of recipes that use up bananas but when I do not have time to cook I pop them in the freezer until I am ready to bake something with them. Thanks for commenting 🙂
Thanks for commenting 🙂
It's terrible how much food we waste! Great tip about the bananas – visiting from #binkylinky
Thanks Katie 🙂
This something i have recently started again. I have never frozen bananas or cheese but I have frozen flora. A shop had it on offer 2 for £1 as short dated and it froze really well. I also shop in the reduced section especially for foods that can be frozen. Also as there is only the 2 of us I buy larger packs of meat that is on offer and seperate into portions/pieces and freeze separately. #binkylinky
I have never thought of freezing flora, what a good idea.
I never knew that about best before dates, will save a lot of food in our house now! #BinkyLinky
Glad to have helped 🙂
I used to do similar but in order to cut our food costs further we now put everything in the freezer. A particularly bad thing I once did was to throw away any fresh herbs that we didn't use but they all go in the freezer now along with unused chilli peppers and root ginger. I always have usable ingredients now! #BinkyLinky
This is a great post. I hate to think about how much food I waste. Quite often I'll buy chicken thighs and forget they're in the fridge. I never really thought to put them in the freezer! Doh! Thanks for linking up #binkylinky
Great tip on freezing herbs and peppers and the like 🙂 Thanks for commenting.
Thank you Emily 🙂
This is really helpful! I too must have wasted so much food over the years!! Great post!! #BinkyLinky
Thank you 🙂
Brilliant post. I hate it when I end up throwing out food- meal planning is the way forward!
Never knew you could freeze cheese- I will be trying that!
Thank you so much Hayley 🙂