Five Ways to Reduce Food Waste

Five Ways to Reduce Food Waste

Reducing your food waste is one of the most effective actions you can take to help fight climate change. Any step you take to reduce your waste has the potential to cause significant effects.

The thing is, wasted food represents the waste of all sort of emissions and environmental impacts from across the food chain – everything that was done to grow, prepare and transport the food. And in Ireland, we waste a lot of food, over 1 million tonnes a year! Here are some of the things you can do,  it really is small steps for big impact!

1 Make a meal plan

Getting into the habit of planning your meals is a sure-fire way to avoid unintended food waste. Many of us have started doing this over the past year due to restrictions. Let’s keep it up for the planet!

 

2 Check your stocks before you go shopping

Take an extra minute to double-check what you already have in the kitchen before heading to the shops. This will help to avoid accidental double-ups and might give you ideas for what you could buy to help use existing ingredients up. If you’ve a head like a sieve, take a quick picture to refer back to.

 

3 Write a shopping list

Simple but definitely effective.

A less simple step is sticking to the list!

 

4 Freeze!

If plans change or you cook too much, the freezer is brilliant tool to help save your food. You can freeze food right up to it’s use by date.

Top tip: slice up the second half of that sourdough loaf and stick it in the freezer. Then you can take a slice or two straight out to make toast whenever you feel like it.

 

5 Loosen up in the kitchen

If you’re someone who follows recipes strictly or only ever uses certain ingredients for certain dishes, we encourage you to loosen up a bit! Let down your lockdown locks and experiment. Everyday meals don’t always have to be perfect and you might surprise yourself. Take a few chances with additions or substitutions and see what happens.