Save your food this season with Smart Living

At this busy time of year, some of us might find we’re throwing away a bit more food than we normally would. Festive dinners out and possibly cooking for more people at home mean that keeping on top of our food waste might be the last thing on our minds.

But what if we told you that we have a handful of easy tips to help you keep on top of what’s in the fridge, save money, and help the planet at the same time?

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re someone who loves nature and the great outdoors. You love our beautiful planet and want to do all you can to look after it. But did you know that wasting food is contributing to climate change? Essentially, when we are unable to use up food before it goes off, or throw away leftovers, we’re also wasting the water, land and other resources needed to grow that food, and that’s not something we can afford to keep doing.

For example, every year in the UK we throw away 101,000 tonnes of poultry that was still good to eat, and that’s just from our homes, so not counting supermarkets or restaurants. In throwing that away, we’re wasting the use of a land area about three times the size of the New Forest used to look after those chickens.

Thankfully, we have a chance to change this, and in doing so we can make a massive difference to our planet.

In fact, if everyone in the UK stopped throwing away food for just a day, it’d do the same for climate change as taking 14,000 cars off the road for a whole year.

Ready to make a change? Take a look at our five best tips to save your food from being wasted over the festive season…

• Make sure your fridge is at the right temperature. Most fridges are too warm, and should be between 3 and 5 degrees. By keeping your fridge nice and cool, you can keep items like milk fresh for up to three days longer, giving you longer to use them up. If you’re not sure how to do this on your model, take a look at this handy guide.
• Ahead of buying in party food, have a few meals where you use up what’s in your freezer to make a bit of space for future leftovers.
• If you’re planning a big meal with lots of guests, use serving plates so people can help themselves to the amount they’d like to eat. This means you can avoid scraping plates and the food still on the serving plates will be easier to use up later in another meal.
• Get the kids involved and play a round of Top Chomps and learn about the resources that go into the food on your plate.
• Sort your storage to keep food for longer! Take a look at Love Food Hate Waste’s storage A-Z to make sure you’re keeping everything in the best place.

For more ways to reduce what you throw away at home, see our webpages, and follow us on Facebook or Instagram for waste-saving tips! And be sure to check out the podcast we have recently released with the Smart Living team.

Statistics taken from WRAP (The Waste and Resources Action Programme) via www.outofdate.org.uk/facts/