Love Food Hate Waste: NZ’s Top 10 food wastes

This isn’t the first time I’ve spoken about food waste and certainly won’t be the last.  Per annum, 79kg of food per household is avoidably wasted, that’s $563 per home and $872 million for the country.

If you followed me last year, you may have recalled my post about Kaibosh, the food rescuers and their great work undertaken in Wellington to retrieve salvageable edibles from businesses and redistribute them to charities.  I also had the privilege to enjoy an All Taste, No Waste meal created out of food ‘waste’ for no better terms, created by the clever head chef,  Sheperd Elliott from Ti Kouka Cafe.

Food waste doesn’t fall on supermarkets, cafes and corporates alone. We as individuals, whether self-proclaimed domestic goddesses or mere mortals, need to take responsibility too: for our buying and eating habits and attitude towards food.

There’s a campaign called Love Food Hate Waste (#LFHW) and it highlights how much we, as individual households, waste. While each of us may shrug off each tid-bit as insignificant, the accumulated total is insurmountable. Check out these figures:

Top 10 foods thrown away

10% bread, 8% leftovers, 5% potatoes, 3% apples, 3% poultry, 3% bananas, 3% lettuces, 2% carrots, 2% pumpkin, 2% oranges

Is it because we have so much disposable income we throw food away like kings? Is it because we don’t value food? Is it because we don’t know how to store or have enough recipes in our arsenal to enjoy every last morsel? What is wrong with us! Our forefathers would be so disappointed.

I’m super passionate about this so I’m looking at each of the Top 10 biggest food we waste and will be endeavouring to come up with extra-easy storage and usage ideas so you can enjoy them for longer.

The ‘Help Yourself Shelf’

When my boys were very young I had a clearly marked ‘help yourself shelf’ in the fridge for the hungry and growing. It was predetermined that those items were up for grabs without asking mum: apples slices (bruises strategically cut off), cheese slices (in bite sized proportions), left-overs from last night’s dinner, yoghurt in single serve containers and healthy finger foods prepared for the times I wasn’t. It worked a treat.

Now well into their teens, common sense applies and I don’t need to be so forthright with the coveted contents of my fridge. Every week though, I do rifle through uneaten goodies and make a dinner plan to use them before their used-by date, as inspiration to bake or prompting a plan of attack to salvage and preserve.

Use your loaf!

Let’s start with bread.  Manufactured breads with long shelf lives have many preservatives to last longer than homemade or bakery bread. Regardless, here are some ways we can extend their life rather than waste it.

• Store it properly! Once upon a time we made our own bread or bought it from the local baker, intended to eat the same day, if not the next. Ideally bag up and seal the loaf in paper (not plastic as it will ‘sweat’, particularly if hot from the oven). Keeping fresh bread in the fridge may shorten its life. Try a bread bin, or cool dark place instead.
• If you can’t eat it, freeze it in an air-tight bag. Once defrosted (and you can do this one slice at a time if you wish), you’d not know the difference; or you can toast slices straight from frozen. This goes for unsliced loaves, buns, croissants, wraps, muffins, baguettes etc.
• Eyes bigger than your stomach?  Think ahead and reduce unnecessary waste. Opt for a smaller loaf ideal for your household, or if it represents better value to buy large, do but if you have no desire to eat it within a day, freeze the rest.
• Is your bread turning? You’ll know by a gentle prod if it’s looking to go stale. Slice up two day-old bread and create your French Toast, Bruschetta, Garlic Bread,  Bread & Butter Pudding (brilliant with bread or croissant) or Bread Souffle, the savoury equivalent.

How to resurrect stale bread

• To make the most of crusts and stale bread, make croutons. Cut bread into small squares, splash with olive oil and sprinkle with herbs. Either freeze them ‘as is’ in a sealed bag ready to cook from freezer to oven when you need them; or put directly in the oven at a low temperature until deliciously brown and crunchy. Keep an eye on them so they don’t burn. Add to soups or salads.  Baked croutons keep for a month in a sealed container in the fridge.
• Depending on how stale, splash some water on, or fully submerge a stale loaf in water for a few minutes — then reheat in the oven for 5-10 minutes in a preheated  over at 180ºC. Just like new: crusty crust and soft, moist centre.
• If you are dealing with stale bagels, baguettes, pita or wraps – slice finely into bite sized pieces, drizzle with olive oil and a fine sprinkle of salt, then bake slowly until crisp. These make amazing crostini and finger foods for dips and canape bases (which cost a fortune at the supermarket) and last for weeks in an air-tight container in the pantry.
• Either grind crusts or stale slices into fresh breadcrumbs (using a food processor) for immediate use, or store in an airtight container or freeze. They can be used to crumb fish, added to homemade coquettes, stirred through to thicken soup (makes it nice and creamy), sprinkled on top of baked scalloped potatoes, gratins, vegetable bakes or casseroles, or as stuffing mix.  Breadcrumbs hold moisture and are a great flavour carrier. Try storing plain, or drying in the oven first and add garlic and your favourite herbs during the drying process for a spicy mix.

RIP bread, you’ve been kind

If you’ve done all you can — think again:

• Old breadcrumbs are still fine enough to throw into your compost. While it is debatable whether it’s a healthy option for the birds, in this fine breadcrumb state it is easily digestible into the earth at least.
• A piece of stale bread in with your vegetable bin may help them stay fresher for longer by absorbing moisture in the air; same is said for stale bread in your baking tin to keep biscuits crunchy.

So tell me, why oh why knowing this, would we have a need to waste bread? Bread SHOULD NOT contribute to the 124,376 tonnes of avoidable organic food waste that ends up in New Zealand’s landfill each year.

Have I said enough? No. Next, let’s tackle the #2 problem with domestic wastage, LEFTOVERS.

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