How to reduce food waste

A little while ago, I really focused on reducing our food waste. I was motivated from both environmental and economic perspectives. It seemed ridiculous that I was regularly throwing out vegetables simply because I couldn’t get myself organised.

I know lots of people who want to reduce their food waste too, but are not sure where to start, so I thought it might be a good topic for a series of blogs.

Getting Started

The first step to reducing my food waste was to start menu planning. Each week I’ll write a menu for all our dinners. This had several positive impacts – firstly, I stopped spending heaps of time stressing each day what I was going to cook for dinner. Then I found that we had a lot more variety in our meals because I was good at menu planning. And lastly, we stopped getting as many takeaways because it was so easy to just follow my menu plan, and I’d already bought all the food which I didn’t want to waste!

Menu Planning

I write out the menu the night before my husband does the grocery shopping. Then we do a shopping list, so that we only buy what we need. I choose to shop at farmers markets for fresh produce and meat, so I do a separate list for that trip. It adds a bit more time to the weekly shop, but the quality of produce is much higher, which translates to better meals at home of course!

Stick With It

Initially I was a bit scattered – I’d still buy a whole cauliflower and then only use half of it, but over time I started to hone my menu planning skills, and I’d be able to plan to use the whole cauliflower (or just buy half!). I think the key is to start off, knowing that it might take some time.

So, I recommend starting with a weekly menu and a shopping list, and see how you go! My next blog will focus on how I do my menu planning.