Urban Green Farms: 10 Tips to reduce food waste at home and save money!

Aussies throw out $8 Billion worth of edible food every year! This equates to wasting a shocking 1/3 of the food we buy.

Here are some quick tips to help you make some better choices and reduce the amount of wasted energy, water, resources and time needed to grow it, ship it and sell it.

1. PLAN AHEAD

Plan your trip to the grocery store and try to only buy what you need. Overstocking on fresh or refrigerated products makes it highly likely that you won't use them, and throw them out.

2. PLAN YOUR MEALS

Buy what you need to make your meals count, don't waste money on buying more than you need for the week. If you plan your meals you're also more likely to only buy what you need and stick to that plan.

3. TAKE FOOD HOME

Ordered a large pizza at dinner and can't quite finish it? Ask for a box and take it home, we waste so much food because we don't often take it with us in take away format.

4. STORE FOOD IN THE RIGHT PLACES

Place food in the fridge and pantry to save it from going off. Use clips on pantry items to keep them fresh and containers to store food in. Learn how and where to store specific products, and they’re likely to keep longer.

6. FREEZE IT

If you've made a big batch of soup, lasagne or pies freeze it! Not only does this save you time on cooking in the future, but it's also a great way to limit waste.

7. COMPOST

Rather than discarding scraps, you can compost certain foods and turn it into nutrient-rich fertiliser. first that we should reduce the waste we create, then donate food, try to feed livestock, use waste for industrial energy and then compost.

Bloom says composting is really valuable -- it's part of the whole equation -- but it shouldn't be anyone's priority.

"It's a nice safety net to keep food out of the landfill, because we're never going to completely eliminate food waste. We're always going to have some excess food, so having a process for that ... is a nice solution," he says.

8. CONSUME A LITTLE LESS

Maybe if we serve less food on our plate we won't waste as much. Study shows we waste food on our plates when our servings are too big. We also might drop a few handy Kilos!

9. MAKE LEFTOVERS YOUR FRIEND

Leftovers contribute over a quarter of food waste but there are plenty of creative uses for them. Be smart and throw all your leftovers on a plate one night of the week, or throw all the remains of the fridge in a frying pan and make something unique and creative instead of cooking a new meal.

10. GROW YOUR OWN

Herbs can make almost any dish tastier, however they can be expensive to buy and a lot of the time we only use half of what we buy while the rest goes limp. A simple herb garden in the kitchen like an Aquasprout system means you will always have a fresh supply on hand and can snip the perfect amount for your dish – start with rosemary, parsley and mint and see how much money you save!

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