With the cost of living crisis here in the UK and the global climate crisis, it is essential now more than ever that households reduce their food waste where possible. In the UK alone, approximately 9.5 million tonnes of food is wasted each year, despite there being 8.4 million people in the country in food poverty.
Thankfully, there are some simple steps you can take to play your part in tackling food waste at home. Below, we’ve listed some of our top tips to help you get started.
1. Meal Box Delivery
If you’re someone who goes shopping then ends up ordering takeaways or eating out most of the time, leaving fresh ingredients in your fridge to spoil before you can use them, then perhaps you need to rethink the way you plan your meals.
Instead, using a meal box delivery service, such as what we offer here at Pow Food, gives you the best of both worlds. We make sustainably sourced ready meals that are freshly prepared by our experienced chefs, then frozen to preserve their quality. This means you can enjoy healthy and nutritious meals that are also easy to prepare - you simply cook them in the microwave or oven!
Furthermore, because they are made to an appropriate portion size, you don’t have to worry about wasting any leftovers, just like you’ll no longer have to worry about buying and not using fresh ingredients that would otherwise go to waste.
2. At Home Composting
If you do have any food scraps or produce waste, instead of throwing them away consider composting them. Many of the food items that you use daily can be composted, including (uncooked) fruits, (uncooked) vegetables, eggshells, teabags and even used coffee grounds - you can view a more extensive list on compostable items here.
Composting these types of food scraps or gone off fruit and veg helps to reduce your carbon footprint, since you will be significantly reducing the methane emissions they would otherwise emit if going to landfill. Compost is also great for giving nutrients back to the soil, and can reduce or, in some cases, eliminate the need for chemical fertilisers - making it great for your garden or agricultural use.
3. Understand Food Labels
Many people are quick to chuck something away as soon as it reaches its expiry date, however this can be an incredibly wasteful habit. There is a big difference between ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ dates. ‘Use by’ indicates that something is no longer safe to eat or drink past the listed date, whereas ‘best before’ means that something is still safe to eat or drink, it just won’t have quite the same freshness or quality as before.
As such, it’s important to differentiate between these and not be too hasty to chuck things away simply because they’ve reached their ‘best before’ date yet show no other signs of deteriorating. There are certain items where you can use your senses to determine whether or not they're spoiling; for example, use your eyes to see if something is going mouldy (e.g. bread) or your nose to smell if something is turning sour (e.g. milk) before deciding to throw them away.
Pow Food
If you’re looking to reduce your food waste and are interested in easy to prepare, fresh and nutritious healthy meals to help you take that step, then don’t hesitate to browse our range of delicious meals here at Pow Food. Why not check out our cold press juices while you’re at it? They’re made from wonky produce that would’ve otherwise gone to waste!
Get in touch with us today for more information about our products and services.