Celebrity chef recipes and tips to avoid food waste

1 Nov 2024
6 min read
A worried couple check their food costs

Avoiding food waste by reducing the amount we throw away will help cut your shopping bills. There’s probably very few of us that haven’t felt the pinch over the last 12 to 18 months as grocery bills have climbed.

For those who are already stretched, there’s no option but to diversify what we’d normally put in our baskets.

From January 2022 to January 2024, food and beverage prices in the UK rose by around 25 percent. In the decade prior to that, the increase was around 9 percent – so the increases aren’t incremental, for some they’re adding a huge amount on every week and for those who are already stretched, there’s no option but to diversify what we’d normally put in our baskets and opt for something cheaper.

Don’t stick to what you know

The good news is, we have a bounty of incredible produce on our doorsteps that’s grown locally and is not only climate friendly but will be kinder on your wallet too.

What’s more, there’s a lot to celebrate when it comes to the UK harvest for 2024 – not least the fact that we’ve actually got one this year. Yes yields might be smaller as farmers had a really tough time planting crops in Spring due to bad weather and storms, but at one point earlier this year, it looked like 2024 might be the first year since World War Two that Britain didn’t have a harvest at all.

Support your local farmer

Research has found the 2024 harvest is going to be a tough one for farmers across the UK with record breaking rains last winter partly to blame. The wheat yield has been reduced by a fifth but while we’ve had better years and better yields, the struggles UK farming has gone through is more of a reason than ever to support local.

In Jamie we trust

Jamie Oliver’s new show “What to Eat This Week” is available on catch up on Channel 4. It celebrates what’s in season and how to make the most of what’s grown on our shores.

He has an incredible cabbage recipe with pasta that’s really tasty and cabbages are on every supermarket shelf at the moment. They’re incredibly cost effective, really good for you and one will feed a family in a pasta dish or risotto.

Think wonky

In addition to what’s available now, look at the wonky veg section in your supermarket and take a wander in your local park or countryside too – apples are in plentiful supply on trees across the country. Hedgerows are heaving with ripe blackberries waiting for crumbles too. There’s a foraging map available here which you can search by area to see exactly where you have trees, bushes, and plants you can forage from to add to whatever you’ve bought.

Best buy British

Farmer holding potatoes.  Image: agence-producteurs-locaux-damien-kuhn-97729-unsplash

Food miles have catastrophic effects on global warming, by getting your food locally, reducing meat and dairy you’ll have a big impact.

As far as climate scientists like me are concerned, there’s never a bad time to support local and buy foods that have been grown near your own front door but this harvest season, where farmers are struggling and supermarket prices for imported fruit and veg are growing, why not support British farming?

It’ll help your wallet, your bank balance, your local community and it’ll help the environment too, food miles have catastrophic effects on global warming, by getting your food locally, reducing meat and dairy you’ll have a big impact.

We don’t have to ditch as much as we do

All of us have had those days where we go through the fridge and bin stuff we really meant to eat or use as an ingredient. It’s frustrating for everyone and tantamount to literally binning money.

There are plenty of ways to get creative with food waste and repurpose it.

We’re conditioned to throw away so much that could still be good for use. When fruit gets brown or veggies look past their best, we often bin the whole thing rather than cut off the bad bit but we don’t need to throw away much in the way of food because lots of it can still be used.

There are plenty of ways to get creative with food waste and repurpose it and thankfully, plenty of amazing chefs are championing reducing food waste meaning they’re doing the hard work coming up with recipes so we don’t have to.

Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussein’s new show Cook Once, Eat Twice is on BBC iPlayer and centres around reducing food waste and making the most out the ingredients we have using every last morsel of them.

The 39 year old says she uses leftover oil to waterproof her fences and has a recipe for watermelon rind curry in her new book to accompany the series too.

We must stop waste when people live in food poverty

Pizza going in bin

Around 9.5 million tonnes of food are thrown away in the UK annually yet we have 8.4 million people living in food poverty so doing as much as we can to reduce waste will make a difference.

Broaden out what you buy and eat seasonally.

One of the best ways to reduce food waste is to be flexible about what you consume. If you only usually buy one type of apple and it’s not there, buy whatever’s on the shelf. Broaden out what you buy and eat seasonally – lots of food waste happens because of long supply chains in supermarkets from growers to shelves, so eating whatever’s available helps.

Batch cooking helps reduce food waste too – if you’ve done a vegetable tray bake one night and there’s not much left, stir it through a risotto to create another meal from the leftovers. Use things like chillis to flavour oils, use garlic peel to flavour salt and freeze whatever you make that you won’t consume straight away.

Most of us use our food waste bins so why not set yourself a challenge not to use it for a week and see if – with Nadiya’s help – you can do your bit.

The mum of three has an incredible recipe in the book for “back of the Fridge pakoras” so there’s really no excuse not to use everything.

Get creative

There are food waste recipes on the internet. Love Food Hate Waste has plenty of food waste recipes and helpfully you can search by the ingredient you’re thinking about ditching so why not give it a go and see how much you can reduce what you’re putting in the bin every week?

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