Stop buying food you don’t need

Most people’s kitchen is a waste ground. People buy, store, eat or use and then store again, but not necessarily in that order. The waste results in multiple repercussions. Waste of money. Waste of space and an enormous waste of valuable food items that could go to a good cause.

Some things are wasted more often than others. For example, fruit and vegetables are a complete disaster. They sit in the fridge or in fruit bowls as forgotten perishable items. A lot of people’s vegetable compartments are so full of produce that it’s often hard for people to know what’s in there. And because they can’t see, or be bothered to rummage around to check, they assume they don’t have it and buy it again.

According to a survey, the most wasteful country in terms of perishable foods is the UK and the most discarded item are bananas. But when it comes to food waste in general China and India seem to top the list, according to the World Population Review.

I can see why certain perishable goods are wasted more quickly than others. They ripen fairly quickly and if you buy them already ripe from the shop the chances of them going off are far higher than if you’d bought them slightly raw. But people often buy too many for consumption in a given week, which means that, even if they are regularly eaten, some are still left perishing in the fruit bowl. No matter how you store them, they do rot quickly and, thus, end up in the bin.

We know that soft fruits are particularly prone to rotting quickly. These include peaches, grapes and apricots. Vegetables have the same issue. For example herbs can rot very quickly if left untouched even in the fridge. Milk and dairy products have the same problem. They can sit in the fridge past their expiry date.

But hang on, is the expiry date an indicator that the food must now be discarded? Well, when it comes to fruit and vegetables, there is no expiry date on the product but you can tell when it’s gone off by the smell, touch or look of it. Mouldy, too soft and the smell of fermentation means it should be discarded.

But with non-perishable items it’s a slightly different story. According to food waste experts, the expiry date on an item does not mean what you think it means. We think that if bread has an expiry date, if it hits that date then the whole loaf should be binned. Not so. I also think that if a non-perishable item has been in the fridge, its expiry date doesn’t really count that much.

But that being said, it’s always best to check the item before consuming it. For example something like flour or cheese or milk might still go off after a certain number of days past their expiry dates.

So how do you address that? A lot of people go shopping without a plan. By that I mean they walk out of their homes and head to the supermarket because they need supplies. But what supplies? Many people don’t look inside their cupboards and fridges to check what they need. They especially don’t check their fridge for breads, herbs and vegetables and other perishable items.

When they land at the supermarket, they play it by ear. They think, do I have coriander? I don’t know. Let’s buy it anyway, just in case.

Meanwhile there’s a whole bunch of coriander sitting in its wrapper at the bottom of the vegetable compartment. Pretty soon it will start to rot because the new bunch will then sit on top and be more accessible. The same goes for bananas and other soft fruit. They buy thinking, just in case someone at home wants to eat more bananas than usual; better to have more than less. Meanwhile that someone eats no bananas and they end up rotting too.

But it’s such a sad waste of food when there are millions who could do with that food. Moreover it’s a real waste of money, buying things you don’t need only to throw them out a week or two later.