10 ways to limit food waste

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Following the fact that half of the world’s food is thrown Rubies in the Rubble was founded in 2010, which aims to counteract the waste of food produce. She works closely with local markets and supermarkets, using their surplus fresh ingredients to make chutneys before they are discarded, which are sold online and in food markets across the UK.

The businesses success saw its London based founder Jenny Dawson selected as the UK winner of Ben & Jerry’s 2012 Join Our Core competition to find Europe’s best young social entrepreneurs, and she has drafted the below tips so that we can all try to reduce our everyday waste output.

10 ways to limit food waste / make use of surplus…
1. Obviously – get into the kitchen and make your own chutney and jams.
2. Love your leftovers: get creative making meals from what you have and spice them up with some of your yummy homemade preserves
3. Think before you shop. Have a look in the fridge for what you already have and have an idea of meals or recipe needs before you shop.
4. Feed your garden – compost your coffee granules or fresh leftovers
5. Excess bread? Panzanella, croutons or bread and butter pudding are all delicious treats… anything but an afterthought. Check out Jamie Oliver’s recipe or experiment with adding bananas if there are some lying around. Or just feed the birds.
6. Use your freezer – if you know you are not going to use something, freeze it fresh for another day…  A full refrigerator retains cold better than an empty one.
7. Savvy storage – get into the habit of putting cereal, biscuits, and fresh nuts into tins or airtight containers
8. be old fashioned – today’s leftovers can be tomorrow’s centrepiece. A roast chicken carcass makes great stock for risotto or soup the next day
9. Don’t be a slave to the sell-by. Remember that Best Before dates are made with caution- often with non-meat or dairy products you can use your common sense to check if they’re still good to eat.
10. Share! Other people- colleagues, neighbours, friends- might just love what you don’t want.

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• http://www.facebook.com/steven.hawkes.73 Steven Hawkes

  Great tips Jenny! Soups and stews are perfect for all those leftover veg and black bananas make the best banana-bread.

  If anyone reading this would like to try out their leftover-using skills for good then please take a look at FoodCycle (www.foodcycle.org.uk) and see if there’s a Hub near you where you can volunteer, creating nutritious meals for people at risk from food poverty using surplus fruit and veg.

• 0memiserum

  Cook almost everything from scratch and make more than you need and then freeze the excess.

  Know what you are going to do with food BEFORE you buy it.

• http://twitter.com/TheEspial THE ESPIAL

  People need to be less squeamish with ‘uglier’ parts of food.

  If it’s bland, add a bit of garlic

• http://www.facebook.com/maryannscadding Mary Ann Scadding

  Bubble and squeak!

• http://www.facebook.com/shommmm Shona Munro

  Good article if you’re in Nottingham then check out Marsha Smith’s Secret Kitchen Cafe (Facebook page Secret Kitchen Cafe)and soon to launch Family Cafe model. Nottingham has also through Groundwork and their project FIG Local launched a new local food brand – Notts Nosh and website coming soon with a focus on connecting consumers producers and community food projects. Facebook Notts Nosh