Christmas is round the corner and this festive season we should pledge to save money by not wasting food. We can always prevent wastage of food by planning in advance about our food requirements this season. There is no denying the fact that most of us want to keep food in stock during the festive season, but sometime we do stock more than what we need, which often leads to wastage. In UK alone, food worth £275 million is wasted over the Christmas period. Wastage of food is nothing less than a sin and we should take all necessary measures to minimize it as much as possible this festive season. Here is a list of five simple ways to reduce food waste this Christmas.

Plan before you shop

Planning before going for shopping is a very important thing because it will help you in buying the amount of food which you need. Forward planning will prevent food wastage because you would not stock foods which will go off uneaten. It is estimated that around £420 worth of food is wasted by each household in the UK annually. Forward planning will help you save the money, which means that you can spend this money on buying other Christmas items. Before going for shopping, make a list of items which you think are important and worth stocking. While shopping in supermarket we often get tempted to buy more than our needs, which often leads to wastage. Before going for shopping, we should be sure in our mind about our recipes for this Christmas and who we are catering to this festive season. Planning also prevents us from overspending.

Avoid BOGOFs

During festive season all supermarkets offer buy one, get one free (BOGOF) scheme. The BOGOF has become a very popular marketing practice and it helps in attracting people to the store. Once you enter the store, the BOGOF will tempt you to buy products which are not needed and many of us end up filling our shopping cart with products which are being sold under the BOGOFs. Once we get done with buying the BOGOF products, we buy other important stuff as well. Though the products in BOGOF cost less, it can lead to food wastage if we fail to use these products carefully.

Love your leftovers!

We should not treat our leftovers as garbage and in fact love them and try to cook something delicious from them. This will lead to the reduction of food wastage during the festive season and we could end up having a delicious meal on our table. Well known chef Jean-Christophe Novelli have come up with recipe of three delicious foods, which we can prepare using leftover foods. The leftovers can also be used to make main course meals. Avoid throwing any food in the garbage and prefer to place the leftovers in brown bin, where they can be recycled. During the festive season, many groups try to advise residents on ways to use the leftovers in meaningful manner.

Packaging

While shopping at a supermarket or from your local store, prefer to buy fruits and vegetables that come without packaging. It will help you to pick fresh fruits and vegetables. Prefer to buy drinks which are packed in bigger bottles. The logic behind this is simple: the waste generated by one large bottle is less than several smaller ones. If the item which you are buying is not available without packaging, then check if the package can be recycled or composted. While shopping for Christmas, always take re-usable shopping bag with you to the market.

Compost food scraps

Avoid throwing the food scraps including vegetable peels, eggshells, etc, into dustbin. The best thing to do is compost them. The composting system is not costly and it is easy to set up. The compost is very good for soil because it increase the soil’s fertility. The composting of food scraps also helps in keeping the environment clean and green.



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A lot of us usually think that by going green during Christmas, we are being black sheep, but that certainly not the case. In fact, recent survey on ‘What does the UK think about Christmas waste?‘, showed that almost half of the people in UK will be making efforts to celebrate a sustainable Christmas.

So, if you are wanting to make this Christmas eco-friendly, there’s no need to worry. We are sure you’d get plenty of people to support you. Moreover, who knows, by going green you might also become an inspiration to the others around you.

Article Submitted By Community Writer