Recycling: Your Food

Good morning!

So far my recycling series has focused on big things you can do; donating to worldwide charities and looking at recycling on a national level.Today I'd like to look at the recycling you can do at home, specifically when it comes to meal times. There are a few simple steps you can take to ensure very little (or nothing at all) gets put in the bin when you prepare a meal.

Save the bits you wouldn't eat.
They may not be good enough to eat, but they're not without their uses. Vegetable peels and meat bones still contain a lot of flavour just waiting to be utilised. Collect all the leftover bits from your ingredients through the week and keep them in a bag in the freezer. Once the bag is full it's time to make stock! Throw it all in a slow cooker or a giant pan, fill it up with water, season it and just leave to simmer for a few hours. The water will absorb all the flavour, creating a nutrient rich stock ready for making soup another day. When it's done, strain the liquid to remove all the bits and chuck all the leftover 'stuff' on your compost heap. For those who want a step by step guide I plan to write one in the coming weeks.

Jazz up your leftovers.
Even the name leftovers sounds unappealing - no one wants to eat what they didn't want last night! But with a little thought and preparation you can completely transform your meal.
- Most leftovers will keep for 2-3 days depening on the ingredients, so there's no need to have the same meal the next day. As long as you keep track of when the meal was made you can leave it a day or two before eating them.
- Another trick is to add fresh spices and herbs to the leftovers when you heat them up, to revive the flavour that has been lost over time.
- Some leftovers lend themselves as an ingredient in another meal. For example when Tom and I make chilli or bolognese there is usually leftover mince. We freeze this and next time we're having pastabake for dinner (which in itself is pretty boring) we defrost the mince and add that in to give the meal some extra flavour.

Start a compost heap.
This is a great tip for reducing your waste in general, not just when it comes to food leftovers. You'd be amazed at just how much you can throw on a compost heap, from leftover veg and cardboard to wine and even human hair! You do have to put a little thought into it, making sure the pH level stays balanced and there's plenty of air in there (this will stop it getting that nasty smell), but overall it's a really simple way to reduce the amount of rubbish you throw away.

Recycle and reduce the packaging.
The easiest way to do this is to buy things fresh; from the butcher, the veg shop, your local farmers market, anywhere that sells fresh produce will already be limiting the packaging they use. When buying fruit and veg from the shop try not to use the free plastic bags if you don't need them (for example bananas, oranges and apples already come with a protective skin - they don't need a bag!).
Any packaging that can be recycled should be - glass jars, cardboard sleeves, plastic trays - there's no need for them to go in the bin. They can be reused (glass jars are great for storing things) or put in the recycling. Just make sure to wash them first - especially if they've been in contact with raw meat.


The great thing about looking at your meals from an Green point of view is that you find you reduce your food bill as well as your rubbish output. You find yourself only buying the amount you need (I've started weighing out the actual recommended amounts of rice and pasta instead of cooking 'what looks about right'.) and finding unusual ways to reuse your leftovers rather than bin them.

Could your meal habits do with a revamp?