How Much Fruit and Veg Do YOU Throw Away?
I was shocked to read a recent article about wasted fruit and vegetables in the UK Times, reporting that 4.4 million apples are dumped in household bins every day in the UK. The figures have just been released by the Waste Resources Action Programme (Wrap) and a full report is due next month.
It's not just apples, either. The article went on to say:
... households are also dumping 5.1 million potatoes a day, 2.8 million tomatoes, 1.6 million bananas, and 1.2 million oranges. These were not scraps or peelings but whole items in good condition.
Do you waste money by throwing away perfectly good food? Here's six ways to make sure you don't have to.
1. Don't buy huge bags of fruit and vegetables
If you're anything like me, you're always on the lookout for a bargain. It's tempting to buy apples and carrots when they're in big bags on 2-for-1 offers. However, if you end up chucking away half the second bag because the fruit is starting to go soft ... was it really worth it?
Instead, buy all your fruit and vegetables loose, and only get what you need for the next few days.
2. Store your fruit and vegetables in the fridge
Unless you'll be using the produce within a couple of days, put your fruit and vegetables into the fridge as soon as you get home. It'll keep fresh for longer, and some items (such as apples) have a stronger, sweeter taste straight from the fridge.
3. Don't keep bananas in your fruit bowl
Bananas emit ethylene gas, which is what causes their skins to blacken. It also speeds the ripening of other fruit. A big china or wooden bowl stacked with fresh fruit looks pretty - but make sure the fruit in it will be eaten the same day.
4. Buy your fruit and vegetables locally
If you can, get your fresh produce from a local greengrocer. The food itself might be a little more expensive than the same items from a supermarket but you're likely to save money overall:
- You'll only buy the quantities you need, not the pre-packaged amount
- You won't be swayed by all the 2-for-1 deals into buying things you didn't really want.
- The produce is usually better quality, so you and your family are more likely to actually eat it.
5. Use up vegetables in your cooking
Most vegetables which are starting to soften will taste fine as part of a dish. Some of my favourite ways of using up the aging specimens lurking in the salad drawer are:
- Grill or roast peppers. Great with pasta, salad or with hummus in a pitta bread.
- Skin and chop tomatoes and use instead of the tinned sort to make a pasta sauce.
- Make soup! Almost any vegetables can be used - root ones (carrots, parsnips, potatoes, leeks, onions) work especially well.
6. Plan ahead - what fruit and veg do you really need for the week?
Do you buy the same items every week when you shop - then find that most of the vegetables are still sitting around days later? Take ten minutes to plan out meals at the start of the week: decide what's for dinner each day, and write your shopping list accordingly. If you've listed stir-fries, soup and pasta dishes, you might not get through much green salad stuff...
How much food does your household throw away? Is your apple a day keeping the doctor away ... or keeping the garbage truck in business?
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Don't throw any fruit anyway, however, for a longtime there I was throwing a lot of vegetables away. So now I buy frozen veg (3 mix various varieties) in packs of three which are microwavable in their bags. Never get bored because of the variety and no longer wasting masses of vegetables.
While freshest is probably best - frozen is a very close second.
ReplyWould pay to edit - freshest = fresh.
Replyfresh isn't always best depending on where you buy your veggies. Veggies that sit on shelves for a few days start to lose some of their nutrients while frozen ones retain their nutrients and are usually frozen not too long after. Although microwaving them probably isn't the best way to eat anything.
ReplyPeople wasting money? Now there's a shocker. /sarcasm
ReplyAt least most people on here are TRYING to preserve their produce. My aunt and uncle are EXTREMELY wasteful when it comes to food. My aunt told me once: "Since neither of us likes to eat leftovers, I just throw away all the leftovers after I make food. That way, I don't feel guilty about it going bad later on". Nothing like giving up before you even start, I guess.
ReplyMy father-in-law doesn't eat any leftovers cause they "taste like refrigerator". I have a friend who, when we eat at her house (I usually cook but we eat over there cause her place is bigger) tossed all the leftovers so fast I had to scream "nooooo" to get her to stop doing it. Like, half a pan of rice. Not only will I eat it for dinner, but I'll turn it into fried rice 2 days later if there is still some.
ReplyExactly! What's funny about my aunt is that she's all about the whole "eco-friendly" movement...she's got a front-loading washer, reusable cloth bags for shopping, etc., yet she wastes so much food that it's really a shame.
ReplyI am devoted to front-loading washers cause I think the regular ones make clothes look "chewed up" and older a lot faster. I didn't know they were supposed to be greener, though - when I got mine and researched electricity spending for both kinds, they were all the same.
Replythis may be unrelated but can u anyone tell me how to keep fruits and veggies from freezing in the fridge. if i raise the temperature then the milk and other drinks are not as cold as i like them. maybe a certain container, foil? i am lost. i have been throwing fruit and veggies out cuz once they freeze they are useless.
Replyi am a 55 year old single dad and these kinds of things baffle me.;-)
Great tips. The one I find most useful is planning my meals ahead of time, it's hard to believe how beneficial this simple action has been for our family!
ReplyYes... Making a list of what to cook for the whole week has helped me a lot in terms of money and eating healthy. Before, I would come home tired and when I do not know what to cook, I would get frustrated and find myself ordering Chinese food or pick something on the way (unhealthy and expensive).. now every sunday, I spend 10 minutes making a list of what to cook each day for B,L&D and buy only those items that I need.. Things dont go waste and I have started eating healthy too... :)
Reply7. Compost your food waste.
ReplyI live in an area where, because of the climate, small scale composting is extremely difficult. Municipalities need to do better at offering large-scale composting facilities.
ReplyHmm. My fruits and vegetables don't make it long enough to be thrown away. Usually I eat them and have to go back for more. I can't fit enough in the fridge to cover more than a few days at a time. (6-10 servings a day x 2 people x 3 days = a lot!)
ReplyYou can also make a tons of applesauce if you have an abundance of the fruit. All you would need is some water , apples and cinnamon and nutmeg. It's really good and naturally sweet!
ReplyFor #5 I would add that omelettes are a good way to use up veg too. One of my weekend breakfasts usually entails an omelette to use up any spinach I didn't use for salads, peppers or tomatos I didn't get to etc. I also dump all kinds of veg into pasta sauce-yummy!
I concur with the meal planning tip wholeheartedly. It makes a huge difference if I think of the week ahead, especially since my husband travels a lot for work. I always need a lot less when he's gone. If I think about my grocery list before I go, I end up wasting very little. (Although I always seem to have a bunch of parsley rotting in my crisper...)
ReplyI think because they freeze things very quickly after picking, and "fresh" stuff in a grocery store loses some nutrients as they transport it and distribute it, etc, that frozen is considered just as good if not better, depending on where you live and how far you are from the source. I have recovered completely from the guilt of buying a lot of our vegetables frozen. Also, frozen makes it really easy to have a variety - I pour a variety in from different bags and pop it in the microwave.
Ever since we were kids my brother renamed the fruit and vegetable drawers in the fridge the "rotter". Years ago it seemed to live up to its name - I bought fresh stuff with good intentions and a good portion of it sat there until it was on its way to being compost. Now that I buy the fresh produce at a farmer's market, things rarely go to waste. Things like locally grown, organic carrots are flavorful so that we enjoy snacking on them. I do use the stuff that is softening a bit in things like soups stews and pasta sauces. People can say that farmer's market produce is more expensive but if the difference is that we actually eat it and don't toss half of it then it's worth the price.
ReplyOh one thing that did help me, actually, to eat my fruits & veggies that were in the fridge - been doing it so long I almost forgot--- I put a sign on the fridge with a list of the fruits and vegetables that are in there. (Cross it off when I eat the last one) I love vegetables but when I'm going quickly (I don't plan my meals, don't like eating like that) -- I'd forget they were an option. Now with the sign, I see it before I open the fridge or a cabinet and can grab some!
ReplyI think the reason I didn't really care much for apples growing up was because my family always kept them out at room temperature and they'd get mushy really fast. I found out that if I keep them in the fridge, they taste a lot better and they keep a lot longer.
My parents STILL keep all their fruit out at room temp and they wind up throwing a lot of it away because it gets rotten because no one eats it because it isn't as appetizing. I find that I'm much more likely to eat the produce I buy if it's good-looking and fresh, so I keep almost everything in the fridge.
ReplyI make a list like Heather's, and I never hesitate to mix a little veg into whatever I'm cooking. Old wilty spinach? You won't taste it in lentil soup or chili. Rubbery celery? Chop it up finely and put it into some rice and beans. There are so many ways to use up the ugly stuff that doesn't scream "eat me now!" Fruit seldom goes bad in this house because I send it to work with my husband every day. I am sorry to say I did have to throw out one grapefruit that languished forgotten behind something else.
ReplyThe only thing I end up tossing regularly is lettuce, exactly because you can't just throw it in a cooked food and freeze for later. Fruit? Only if it is rotten at the core. I hate overly brown bananas, but I'll make some muffins or banana bread if I have brown bananas.
Old celery is good in a stew or in soup like pumpkin or potato soup.
ReplyHey Jan, I put lettuce into vegetable soup if I have too much of it in my fridge. It actually tastes pretty good cooked. Just make sure to cut it up pretty finely before you throw it in. If you have leftover cabbage, that makes a good soup addition too.
ReplyI've tried that and had some texture issues with the seaweedy way they get... And I have a weird thing about not eating salad when it is cold, just cooked vegetables, so when the weather changes suddenly, 1/3 of a large head of lettuce will usually go.
I like cooked cabbage and cooked spinach, so these don't turn into casualties. And I like arugula so much I just sit and eat the whole bunch by myself regardless of the weather. Some people have popcorn, I have arugula.
My favorite vegetable is Chinese cabbage, though. It works as salad and as a stir-fry vegetable and although it is huge, it lasts at least a month with no problem in the crisper.
ReplyHey,
Even i used to throw lettuce away..but found a tip... just blend the lettuce in the mixer with a little water and kinda make it watery.. then add a little bit of it while cooking soup or even pasta sauce.. you will hardly notice the taste.. i know it sounds wierd to make lettuce "juice".. but give it a try :)
ReplyWe eat mostly frozen veggies here, because otherwise most fresh veggies don't get eaten. It always seems like a good idea at the time, but when I'm the only one eating the salads or carrots or whatever, and I'm watching my husband eat something really yummy, I give up and eat what he's having. He always promises he'll eat salads with me, but I can't remember the last time he actually did.
We eat tons of fresh fruit as our snacks - my boys know they can basically have a piece of fruit anytime they want. Not much at all gets wasted, except an occasional banana. Okay, avocados can be so iffy - it seems like one minute they're too hard to eat, and the next they're brown and rotten, so we might toss an avocado or two a week.
We do eat frozen berries and some other fruit. My boys like them straight out of the bag, and I mix them with yogurt and wheat germ. We mostly buy these frozen because the availability is better and the cost is less.
I have planted a small garden and am planning on composting all of our wastes now!
ReplyI have this exact problem. I read an article on diet-blog about how fresh food is so good for me, buy a ton, and then.... watch it rot.
I eat probably 50% of the fresh food I bring home.
ReplyMost of what we buy ends up being eaten. Probably the most common thing to get tossed is celery that got pushed to the back then forgotten and lettuce and spinach that were bought in slightly too high a quantity.
ReplyI'm so anal about buying my fruits and veggies and storing them properly that I haven't actually thrown any fruits and veggies away for about 2 or 3 years now. My trick is to buy what I know I'll eat in a week when I go to the store so I don't have too much that can go bad. When I buy apples, oranges, peaches, etc., I NEVER buy the big bulk bags of them because it seems like there are always a couple of rotten ones in there. I pick the ones I like out of the bulk bin so I know I'm picking good ones.
I store my apples in the fridge and they last a LONG time that way. Same with carrots...they can last a good long time if they don't get waterlogged. I keep my tomatoes on the counter so they don't get a flat taste to them.
My favorite way to use up produce is to make soup with them. I'll sautee an onion and put some low sodium chicken stock in a pot and throw in celery, cabbage, carrots, broccoli stalks, frozen veggies, potatoes, parsnips, etc. I let it cook for a while with some herbs and spices and then I pour in a can of vegetable juice for a nice easy meal.
I also like the omelette idea. Usually, I make "scrambles" for my husband because it's the only way I can get him to eat veggies. I cut up onions, broccoli, peppers, etc. really finely and mix them with a bit of ham or turkey and sautee them in a pan. Then I add a couple of beaten eggs and scramble the whole thing up. Then I spoon the mixture into corn tortillas and wrap them up and freeze them for easy on-the-go breakfasts for my husband.
ReplyI don't throw any fruit or vegetables away. I don't eat it all though -- what's left goes to my compost or my friends' chickens. None of it is wasted.
Maybe it's a waste of my money to feed my compost and friends' chickens that way, but I feel it's better for me to always have fruit and vegetables around and risk composting them than to risk running out of them and having to use the car to go buy more.
When we lived in a small apartment in the city, we had a worm compost bin to eat our scraps. It worked really well -- didn't take up much space, didn't smell, used up a lot of scraps. I highly recommend it. If you don't have someone to give the compost to, you can dump it in the park -- it's still better for the earth that way.
One more thought -- when I buy local food or grow my own it is so much fresher than what I get at the supermarket and it lasts longer.
ReplyYou're not kidding about how the really good stuff gets gobbled up. In the summer, we spend two months at the lake and there is a great u pick down the road - they have everything - from berries to potatoes. We pick it and bring it home and it just about evaporates we eat it so fast. And we eat a lot of fresh veggie borsht in the summer - no meat, just stock and vegetables - baby potatoes and carrots and beats, peas and green beans - and dill with a little scoop of sour cream on the top, yum.
Replyi was wasting all kinds of food not just fruits and veggies so i went and bought a smaller refrigerator to replace my aging monster. i am now not only saving in food costs but also saving around 15% off my electric bill. i walk by a grocery store at least 5 days a weeks so its not inconvenient to stop in frequently.
ReplyI appreciate that you mentioned stopping by a store 5 times a week. It's so important to realize that each person's situation is so different. When I lived in the city I picked up what I needed for the next 24 hours on my way home from work. Where I live now, I have to drive to the supermarket, so I prefer to limit going to once or twice a week when I'll be passing it anyway.
ReplyFor a few years I've been cooking a banana with my oatmeal. Older bananas have converted more starch to sugar and so make the oatmeal sweeter. It's like the banana-for-banana bread argument. So, now, I never toss bananas.
A friend of mine - Italian - who makes an Italian apple tart, found that older partially shriveled apples make great tarts. So, now she lets her apples go well psat the tossing point of most people and then cooks with them.
ReplyI put a banana in my oatmeal, but I don't cook it. Bananas go through 3 stages: good to eat by itself or in slices, then slightly mushy but still good to eat mashed with raw oats over them, and then finally as banana bread or banana muffins.
The old mushy apples make the best applesauce.
ReplyAnytime I have bananas that look like they're going south, I peel them and mash them up and put them in the freezer. Then I use them for banana bread in the future. Good banana bread NEEDS to have really mushy soft bananas to taste good.
Replywell ... if you count USA food wasting it is far more
ReplySo I'm just curious...I've seen these special "Green Bags" on TV that claim to absorb the ethylene gas so that your produce lasts longer. I'm wondering if anyone's tried them and if they actually work. I know those bagged salads use MAP (modified atmosphere packaging) where they fill the bags with 100% nitrogen to prevent oxidation, so I just kind of wonder if the "Green Bags" actually work.
ReplyThose bags are great especially in warm weather. I've kept bananas for 2 weeks using those bags and salad greens even longer. With the bags I don't worry so much if I over-buy.
ReplyThey work great for the stuff I keep in the fridge. I didn't try bananas, but the results with potatoes, that I keep out of the fridge, were disappointing - I kept some on the mesh bag I got them in, some in the green bag, and they went bad at the same time. But for greens, peppers, etc. they worked well. I didn't really bother to put fruit in them cause I eat them so fast it is not a problem.
ReplyCool. I was curious about them because I would use them in the summer to help keep my tomatoes fresher longer. I get so many of them from my garden that it seems like I can barely use them fast enough! It would be nice to extend their life at least a little bit.
ReplyMaybe mason jars and canning them peeled in tomato juice will be more work, but better, since they seem not to really work for stuff not in the fridge.
ReplyWe freeze our fruits after a while, perfect for shakes.
ReplyThat is disgusting! I make it a point to never throw any fruit or vegs away. When it starts to turn, we make up a dish to use them pronto.
ReplyDespite the fact that fruit ripens faster in the fruit bowl, I like to put my fruit there because I'm more likely to eat it than if it's in the fridge bin. I wasted more fruit by storing it in the fridge and forgetting about it than I do now with the fruit bowl.
And with two two-year-old banana-lovers in my house, they never go to waste :)
ReplyGet a mesh bowl - they make the metal ones or if you have broken a salad spinner in the past, you can use the plastic mesh one that comes in that (it is what I do). They last so much longer than in a regular bowl.
ReplyGreat tips. I want to add some info that there some fruits that we must beware of them because of very high in sugar
Banana : 20.4g
ReplyFig : 19g
Grapes : 15.5g
Guava : 17g
Kumquat : 16g
Lychee : 18g
Mango : 15g
Persimmon : 18.6g
Pomegranate : 17g
Fruit sugar is good for you, so why would you beware?
ReplyWhy do you think we have a sweet tooth and can see in color? Fruit is a food we are naturally designed to eat. Refined sugar is very different, little or no nutrients and extremely high in calories. Next to non-starchy vegetables, fruit is the most nutrient rich/low-calorie food there is. Just keep down the intake of dried fruit and fruit juices.
ReplyFruit sugar isn't bad for you as long as you consume it with the fruit in its whole form. Fruit has enough fiber, pectin, and water in it to dilute the sugar down enough so that it doesn't affect your blood sugar as much. Fruit juice, which has no fiber, is something you have to drink with caution, because the amount of fructose is a lot higher.
ReplyI'm so lucky that a family has set up a little neighborhood fruit & veggie stand near by. I can walk there daily to grab just what I need on most occasions; exercise and fresh produce! Can't beat it.
ReplyGreat tips - Ali.. and shocking findings! Makes me sad for those in impoverished regions.
We rarely throw anything away - I owe this to my wife's mastery of cooking "only what we have" (thankfully I haven't experienced a toothpaste sandwich, ala Al Bundy!).
I think the tip about buying too much is dead on... we've had a few of those pre-washed greens from costco go slimey after eating only about a third of it!
ReplyI have 2 dogs and 2 growing boys, no waste in our home....lol
ReplyI wish MY dog would eat produce. My mom's dogs eat carrots and apples, so if they have some that are going bad, they just feed them to the dogs. My dog chews up carrots and leaves them on the carpet.
ReplyI did not have good experiences with the Green Bags. Things seemed to rot more quickly, which made no sense to me. Perhaps I didn't use them properly, who knows? The fridge seems to work just fine for me.
ReplyThey seem to only work in the fridge, with stuff like carrots, which then take longer to go soft, and broccoli, which takes longer to go yellow.
Outside - nothing. With leafy stuff like lettuce, it is better than just leaving it in a regular bag, but *worse* than putting the leaves between sheets of paper towels in tupperware, which is what I do when I am not being lazy.
ReplyI used to buy fruit that looked good, get it home, taste it and find it not sweet or even woody or mushy, then throw it away. Then I noticed that frozen fruit is always perfect and often less expensive. I guess they are very careful about freezing (or canning) hundreds of pounds of something that isn't first rate. Anyway, I buy frozen blueberries and never waste a single berry. Also, because they are frozen, there's no hurry to use them up. Frozen blueberries are available yearround, cheaper, generally better, always good and very convenient. Some other frozen fruit like strawberries are mushy when you thaw them though. With apples, the worst variety is red delicious. Hard to tell if they will be sweet or not or mushy inside until you get them home. I just don't buy them. With golden delicious and Fugi, I always can tell exactly what I'm buying. I just avoid most other fruit, unless I have time to buy a very small portion, try it and then return to buy more if it is in fact good. dkw
ReplyWhen I make fruit salad, I will have to buy various kinds of fruits which I can't buy just a piece for each kind.I usually only need one or two pieces of each. Then, I keep the rest of fruit in my fridge and I usually forget that I have several left there. I just remember that later when I am thinking of making fruit salad again. Yet, I usually can't use them anymore. They look unfresh and must not be so crispy to put in my next fruit salad. Of course, the garbage bin is a better place for them than is my next fruit salad bowl.
ReplyYou can make more fruit salad, using your whole fruits, add unsweetened orange juice, put in tupperware, and it should last 3-4 days in the fridge.
Don't put bananas in there though. Add banana at the time you are gonna eat it. Bananas are too sweet and they make the fruit salad ferment. Everything else should be ok.
ReplyWhen I make fruit salad, I will have to buy various kinds of fruits which I can't buy just a piece for each kind.I usually only need one or two pieces of each. Then, I keep the rest of fruit in my fridge and I usually forget that I have several left there. I just remember that later when I am thinking of making fruit salad again. Yet, I usually can't use them anymore. They look unfresh and must not be so crispy to put in my next fruit salad. Of course, the garbage bin is a better place for them than is my next fruit salad bowl.
ReplyI find the biggest thing that causes waste is buying too much at a time. It always looks like a better deal buying the large bag or box, but in the end having waste just isn't worth it.
ReplyI always do my best to not let anything go to waste. I was raised this way because we were poor, but I continue to do this because I'm smart. When I over-buy produce, I make a large quantity of some kind of salad and give it to a nearby friend or relative (many of us are single, live alone, and appreciate that!). Also, if you over-buy, you can usually freeze vegetables or fruit yourself.
My father and step-mother throw away leftovers immediately, too. It's wasteful and I don't understand it.
ReplyFruit juice, which has no fiber, is something you have to drink with caution, because the amount of fructose is a lot higher.
ReplyPeople are very wasteful, I mean this food could have been sent to a third world country but we Americans waste a lot because its our lifestyle we get served way oversized meals at restaurants, we over cook more than we will eat, and foods are packaged in large quantities, but the upside to our downward economy is that people will realize that they have wasted so much food and money. I try my hardest to not waste food we eat leftovers for lunch the next day or dinner, but I know its hard because we have such rushed lives. To all those people who deal with family who dislike leftovers because of the refrigerator taste, tell them to get some Baking Soda and put in the fridge, it absorbs all the smells and weird tastes that lingers in there.
ReplyTo all those people who deal with family who dislike leftovers because of the refrigerator taste, tell them to get some Baking Soda and put in the fridge, it absorbs all the smells and weird tastes that lingers in there.
Replyhey look unfresh and must not be so crispy to put in my next fruit salad.
ReplyWell, refined sugar is very different, little or no nutrients and extremely high in calories. Next to non-starchy vegetables, fruits is the most nutrient rich/low-calorie food there is. Just keep down the intake of dried fruit and fruit juices.
ReplyTo be honest, I buy frozen blueberries anyway and never waste a single berry. Also, because they are frozen, there's no hurry to use them up. Frozen blueberries are available yearround, cheaper, generally better, always good and very convenient.
ReplyWe all have seen these special "Green Bags" on TV that claim to absorb the ethylene gas so that your produce lasts longer. I'm wondering if anyone's tried them and if they actually work??
Reply