"Wasteful kiwis still biffing costly fruit and veggies"

... is the title of THIS article posted on the Stuff.co.nz website this morning.

In a nutshell, we (kiwis) are still buying more than we need, cooking more than we need and throwing out the rest.

Food prices have increased, petrol prices have increased, general living costs have increased but we are still throwing away thousands of dollars of food a week.

I know for me personally, if something is on special it is very hard for me not to buy it- and in the past this meant that food has gone to waste- in the bins and in the compost. Since we have been doing meal plans (for dinners mainly) our food waste has been greatly reduced as we are only buying and consuming what we need.

So, how do we reduce the amount of food we waste?

Meal planning
If you know what you are going to eat, you wont buy unnecessary food items and therefore you hopefully wont waste them. Meal planning doesn't have to be set in stone- we often interchange what we have planned with another day, but we try to stick to a weekly plan as much as possibly.

Buy what you need
Don't go out and buy all of those cheap-as-chips specials and deals if you aren't going to consume them or use them (ie preserves, frozen meals etc) in time.

Eat or use your leftovers
So often, we don't really feel like eating the same as what we ate last night for the 2nd day in a row... If you know this will be the case, perhaps put some aside as a frozen meal (if possible) or give it away. Nanna popped over for a visit recently and we had lots of leftover casserole from the night before- she was very happy to take some home for her tea.

Store well
If you do decide to buy 20kg of potatoes because they were $1 at the local market, make sure you store them well where they wont go off fast. Same goes with any perishables. If you need to refrigerate something, make sure you remember its there! Many a time I have gone to the fridge and found something oozing at the bottom because I had completely forgotten about those <insert perishable>, even though I really wanted to eat them.

Do you have any more ideas for how you personally reduce the food wastage in your household? Please share them below- we'd love to hear from you!