Love Food Hate Waste
Don’t just eat it – compleat it!
How people in Cheltenham can use up every edible bit of food.
In the UK, we throw away the equivalent of 19 loaves of bread per household every single year… and research shows it’s more likely to be thrown away by a woman than a man.
Love Food Hate Waste has been investigating how well people in the UK compleat their food, and it turns out that some valuable food staples – like potatoes, bread, and apples – are wasted simply because of personal preference.
Compleating is more than just how you cook – it’s a whole food philosophy, one that can save you money while you look after the planet. It means finding fun and innovative ways to make use of bread crusts, broccoli stalks, pumpkin seeds, potato skins, and any other edible bits and pieces that you might otherwise have thrown out.
Use your loaf
Crusts and end slices of bread are among the most wasted foods. Of the 410,000 tonnes of bread we throw away in the UK every year, over a quarter is crusts and ends! The amount we waste is enough to make 11 billion soldiers to dunk into our eggs every year.
Love Food Hate Waste spoke to 2,090 UK adults, examining some commonly wasted foods to see how good they are at compleating. Only 66% of people said that they always eat their bread crusts, although 97% know that they are edible. Men proved keener to eat these parts of the loaf than women: only 60% of women always eat the crusts, compared to 72% of men. Furthermore, just 37% of women always eat the end slice compared to more than half of all men surveyed (57%).
Ditch the peeler
Potato skins are perfectly edible, delicious and nutritious, and yet these are commonly wasted!
Of the people Love Food Hate Waste surveyed, just 6% thought that potato skins are inedible, which across the whole country adds up to nearly 4 million people. Wasted potatoes cost UK households roughly £550 million every year, and food waste overall can set a household of four people back by £70 each month.
If all of those 4 million people started compleating their potato skins, this small change could make a big difference! Most of the fibre goodness is in the skin, so enjoying skin-on mash would ensure you get all the nutrients from the humble spud without wasting a single bit.
Compleating your skins is the perfect way to stay healthy, save money, and love your planet all at the same time.
How can people in Cheltenham compleat?
To help you make the most of every bit of your food, here are some top compleating hacks:
- Make a super quick mini pizza by loading up the end slice of bread with somedelicious pizza toppings.
- Try whizzing up some carrot leaves with oil, parmesan, and garlic for somecompleatly delicious homemade pesto.
- Skin-on mash is a perfect way to use up your potatoes. Chop up your (un-peeled!)spuds into small chunks before boiling and the skin will make the finished product silkysmooth.
- Carrots, parsnips, and other root veggies are perfectly edible without peeling! All theyneed is a quick wash before preparing – saving you time as well as reducing waste.
- Too full for your pizza crusts? Try dipping them in guacamole or salsa as a cheekyafter- dinner snack – an alternative to pitta bread or breadsticks!
- Food waste is one of the biggest environmental challenges we face; if it were a country, food waste would be third largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. A lot of perfectly edible food is commonly wasted due to preference alone, so if everyone took action and compleated their food, we could make a huge difference to the planet and our purses.
For more tips for compleating your food, visit lovefoodhatewaste