Be Excellent To Each Other

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7389351.stm

Thing is, I throw away food. Here's an example.

Bread can only be purchsed in 400g loaves, or 800g long life loaves.*

I'm single, if I buy either of those, I'll use half before it turns green.

So I'm throwing away half my bread, the alternative is not having bread.

If there was a 400g long life I'd buy it.

And this happens everywhere. If you're single, everything pre-packaged and not long life is either only available in packages that are too big, or the small packets are more expensive (and I don't mean per g, frequently they're actually just more period, look at 1l vs 2l sodas for example).

So I'm sure I throw away that average of 18%. It's not my fault, the alternative is not eating. In short, they can fuck off with their lectures and actually start pressuring manufacturers to make useful sizes... although of course they require more packaging per g of food so we're still screwed.

* And of course even more annoying, nice fresh baked stuff only comes in tremendous-o-size.

Freeze your bread and defrost as necessary.

make your own bread.

Euch no, Warburtons do special half-loaves though.

I hope they were asked.

If you let it defrost naturally, like overnight in the fridge, it's fine. Or if you want toast, toasted frozen bread works just as well as normal toast.

That said, I regularly throw away bread.

If you have room for such things that must be wonderful. For instance, you don't share a freezer between 4 people.

Even so that's stupidly inconvenient in order to solve a problem the manufacturers have caused.

I'm not convinced a freezer causes less environmental damage than 200g of bread.

It's not just bread anyway, that's just the obvious example. You can add to that any fruit they don't do loose (and I'm not fond of food the local tramps have been handling either and 500 people have already picked the not shit examples out of).



That's the 400g ones I mentioned, but they don't do them in long life, so I'll still waste half. I actually buy Hovis ones that size because warburtons always have stupidly small sizes.

Incidentally, a 400g Hovis loaf costs more than a Tesco 800g one.

Dudley, I imagine your concerns and issues go beyond bread. I also live the live of the hideous bachelor. I have immense difficulty in buying food that isn't intended for two or more people. My freezer is full of frozen veg, as I don't live near a grocer's, so I too end up throwing away quite a lot of bread during a week. Other stuff too but heh, in my case it is mostly bread.

can you not share bread (and milk and things of that sort) with your house mates?

Superb suggestion of course but the problem there is everyone likes different kinds, Milk's not a problem for me since I'll go through 4 pints in 2 days no problem but I'm the only one buying skimmed.

Plus of course then you've got the possibility of "Who's turn is it?" "Who finished the" type of arguments which I do not want to get into.

We store our bread in a machine that sucks all the air out when you close it. Seems to work.

In order to prevent my bread being nicked during uni, I would put it in a carrier bag, tie a knot, and then put that carrier bag in another carrier bag, and tie a knot. Threefolds of carrier bag were usually sufficient to prevent 'confusion' of housemates who mistakenly thought it was their 3-carrier-bagged bread. Worked about 90% of the time, because you still do get the odd twatface who will still your stuff blatantly.

I freeze my bread. The problem we have occasionally is buying fresh stuff and not eating it within the 2-day window before it goes off. Bagged salad is so bad for this that I don't buy it anymore, it's brown and half-off in the supermarket before you even buy it. Otherwise, we don't waste food at all. A compost heap must be handy for scraps, I suppose.

nyn, that device looks awesome.

where do you buy it?

Ooh, now that's interesting, where can I get such things?



Yeah I never buy bagged salad, I just try and buy individual stuff. Tesco bless em do snack packs of a lot of stuff which is nice but it's still more packaging per g and I wonder if it might actually be better to buy more and throw away some.

Does that fruit chest have a lock on it?

I can imagine you stumbling into your house starving, seeing the tub of fruit, and being unable to get it open. You try to prise it open... claw at the glass.

You die of starvation.

Afterwards, the tub pops open with a faint click.

I'm not sure where to get them. I'll ask at home when I get back from work.

A quick google returns This page though.

You have to wait a few seconds when opening it for the air to get back in, though. Several times I've opened the catch too impatiently, and been stuck with a locked chest of goodness.

Interesting, although something of a sledgehammer to crack a nut style solution when they could just do me a 400g long life loaf

Thanks.

But where's the cool gadget in that?

I threw away a slice of toast this morning, only to go upstairs and be immediately admonished by Bill Turnbull. It was weird. But y'know, fuck it, I paid for the bloody loaf, I can do what I like with it.

You and Dudley should move in together and share food.

Problem solved

Feed the ducks once a week. You get to play petty power games with them and feel important.

At minister pool in Lichfield there's a lone, solitary, pure white duck. I favour this one when I'm feeding them. Does this make me a racist?

Back when I used to work at Special Reserve (remember them?), I used to sit outside by the river before my shift started, and I once saw an oversized, wonky eyed freak of a duck trying to rape a load of other male ducks (mallards, I suppose). The river was a frenzy of panicked splashing, and I actually wondered if I should do something to make the raping stop. But I didn't, I just sat and watched.

... and in a way, it was just like Special Reserve...

I end up binning a fair bit of my food too with living alone. Plus there are always BOGOFs and 3 for 2 type offers around that you want to take advantage of but have to be careful with or you just end up with the extra going off. Buying just what I needed would probably end up costing me more in the long run.

I should probably just live off coke and chocolate.

Or live in Bristol, where you're not allowed to throw away food.

Remind me never to visit your house.

Really? Do you have to eat every last thing or the council will shout at you? What about bones and potato peelings and apple cores?

I was always brought up to not throw food away as it's a waste but since I've moved into my own house, I take the "My money, my food, I can do what I like with it" stance.

I do like to put the crusts out for the birds though... I'm kind like that.

I have this problem too. I solve it by simply going to the chip shop every night.

I daresay my bank balance would prefer it if I didn't do this though.

Well that too of course, offers are geared to making you buy more even cheaply rather than giving you the chance to buy what you need for less. If there's a BOGOF on something I want anyway of course I'm going to take the 2nd one.

Even if there's little chance it'll get used.

We used to throw away lots of food, then we stopped getting BOGOFs. Ta-da! Now we throw away barely any. It's as simple as that - supermarkets are shifting their own supply/demand cock-ups onto the consumer so they end up putting it in the bin at home rather than the supermarket having to pay for commercial waste collection.

The problem we have is when we've cooked slightly more than two portions of food - that last portion can linger in the fridge and go bad, as it's not usually something you can take to work, and it's not enough to feed two the following evening.

That and bread. Bloody ridiculous stuff. Warburton's don't seem to do genuine half-loaves here (York), just smaller sized loaves, which make ridiculously tiny sarnies. I've discovered that Hovis Thick Wholemeal seems to keep forever, fortunately.

Oh, and potatoes! Bloody supermarkets keep these in translucent packets under lights, which makes them start growing. Pick a bag from the bottom of the pile, away from the light, then when you get home put them in a double lined cotton back in a dark cupboard. They'll keep for ages.

Yep, we have a special potatoes bag for that purpose. Try to buy potatoes in paper sacks if you can.

Along with your digestive system.

[quote="Whomper"]We used to throw away lots of food, then we stopped getting BOGOFs. Ta-da! Now we throw away barely any. It's as simple as that - supermarkets are shifting their own supply/demand cock-ups onto the consumer so they end up putting it in the bin at home rather than the supermarket having to pay for commercial waste collection.[/quiote]

THIS.

I'd heard on the Radio 4 that they were moving to half price offers rather than BOGOFs, as consumers were getting fed up with them, but I've seen no evidence of this.

BOGOFs are fine for non-food groceries, like shampoo or whatnot, but food? Fuck off.

Maria liked yours so much she bought one. Now I just forget we have potatoes as they're not sat very obviously in the fridge...

We have solved the problem of food spoilage by purchasing a freezer. And we spend about 200 quid a month on food (sans booze)

Good thinking. Having that on 24/7 is loads better than throwing away your old veg.

Without a freezer you can't have a massive stockpile of calippos, twisters, fab lollies and other assorted icy treats.

That way lies madness.

Yeah, but that's different. Mine is currently full of Sun Lollies. OMFG, excuse me...

madness, "No, this is Spar-ta"

Sadly seemingly almost universally true now FTFY.

michael jackson's bed?

I try to avoid wasting food as much as possible... so generally I buy perishable stuff with the intention of eating it within the next few days, with everything else as stuff that keeps for longer so it can go into the bread bin/cupboard/freezer for later. Hell, if you do fajitas, for example, buy the chicken and peppers now as they last, and buy the tortillas on the day.

Oh absolutely, problem is, the tortillas come in packets of 10. I can't eat 10.

Tortillas keep unopened in the cupboard for quite a while though, don't they? I can't see why you'd need to buy them on the day.

Can you not freeze tortillas between baking parchment, Dudley? I haven't tried to, but as you can freeze pancakes and bread I cannot see why you couldn't freeze the remaining eight or nine tortillas.

You used to keep your spuds in the fridge? ( )

do they not go all black? ( again )

Bums. Just went to make some delicious toast and found the bread (purchased not 3 days ago) had gone rank. Curse this engaged lifestyle with a partner who doesn't like the same bread as me!

I keep all fruit/veg/tubers in the fridge.

Again, requires fighting for freezer room with 3 others and the concept of a freezer being more environmentally friendly than throwing out some bread still sits uneasy with me.

To be honest, I don't buy tortillas, but there's plenty of other things I have this trouble with. To be fair, because I tend to buy as I need I don't have major trouble but that's because I live right next to a reasonable Tesco Express. If I had to shop weekly I could be screwed.