Our Top Tips for Reducing Food Waste
All of us here at Speakers Corner strive to do our bit to help the environment and be an environmentally aware office.
One of our New Year’s resolutions for the year included #14, to target food waste. If we all stopped wasting food which could have been eaten, it would have the same CO2 impact as taking 1 in 4 cars off UK roads.
We are proud of our environmentally friendly office, and some of our outstanding sustainability speakers , so here are Speakers Corner’s top tips for reducing food waste.
- Bring a list to the shops and only buy what you need. Look at the sell-by dates on special offers and avoid purchasing any food which might go out of date before you get a chance to eat it! So, write down what you want and stick to that list, or order online to save the distractions.
- Buy too many herbs and they started to go bad? Freeze them with olive oil to use in any dish
- Be Savvy with Shelf-Life Dates. Are your eggs fresh? Instead of relying on the ‘use-by-date’, a simple tip I learnt from growing up on a farm with no dates stamped on them; Put them in a bowl of water and if they sink, they’re fine, if the float then they’re off.
- For those Green thumbs, re-grow veggies from kitchen scraps (also a fun activity for kids). Cut off the root end of the veg and put it in some water. Once the roots develop and they start sprouting, then transfer to a little pot of soil and watch them thrive.
- Get creative with leftovers. If you were in a baking mood over the weekend and cooked up a storm, why don’t bring it into the office for everyone to join? We regularly have baked goods in the office and it just makes our Monday!
- Learn to Love your Freezer. If you have nights where you love cooking and others where take-away pizza is the best option, then this might be the tip for you! I regularly bake raspberry and banana bread and once cooled, I cut it into slices and put it in re-usable zip-lock bags and freeze it. I also do this with cookies (but in a plastic container), spaghetti bolognaise sauce and soup. Not only does it help with portioning, is time-saving for the nights you want to put your feet up, but it saves food that would otherwise be wasted.
- Lost for meal ideas? Find the reduced section in the supermarket with all the food that will be thrown out that night, and make a meal out of what you can!
- Save those Vegetables. We all love buying fresh fruit and veg, but sometimes it gets to the end of the week and you realise that there is still a lot left over. Root veg is great cooked then frozen in batches, or bake some banana bread with those bananas that are looking a little sad, and if you have lots of veggies left-over, it’s perfect to put in Spaghetti Bolognaise! If the kids don’t like vegetables, then use a hand-blitzer and they won’t even notice.
- And if it gets to the point where there is no saving the food produce, HELLO COMPOST !
Regardless if you can commit to one or all these ideas, every contribution will help! If you have any further ideas, we’d love to hear them – just tweet us @Speakers_Corner!
For further information or to book one of our speakers, call us on +44 (0)20 7607 7070 or email info@speakerscorner.co.uk .
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