Eco Friendly House And Garden

In the UK you can buy meat products that are from a known source.

So you can rest assured that the animals were treated with the basic standards we would expect, received medication when necessary and were not cooped up alone for weeks on end.

So what does the Freedom Food label actually tell you?  It’s not organic, it’s not fair trade - so what is it for?  It has been in place since 1994 so it is obviously here to stay and is taken seriously.

Below I have summarised the 5 main points from their own leaflet, so that you can be sure of these things when choosing this type of meat product over the other similar products on the shelf that don’t have the RSPCA Freedom Foods logo, (or those that are certified organic as this has a similar set of criteria).

Labelling in all countries allows for certain words and images to be used on meat products that are not a true representation of how the animals were treated or where they were kept. 

For example the words ‘natural’ and ‘fresh’ mean absolutely nothing with regards to how the animals were reared or lived, and ‘produced in the UK’ doesn’t mean the animals ever saw the UK while alive - they could have been factory farmed in any other country in the world and shipped here after slaughter.

In addition, this RSPCA label (among others) is not connected to any food brands or food manufacturers, so you know it is only the animals they have in mind rather than profits!

So, here are the summarised points that mean that you could be making a difference to how your food is farmed:

1) Freedom From Hunger & Thirst:
These animals will have had access to fresh water and a suitable diet that maintains health and vigour.

2) Freedom From Discomfort:
These animals will be provided with an appropriate environment including shelter and a comfortable resting area.

3) Freedom From Pain, Injury Or Disease:
These animals will be living in an environment that helps prevent accidents and illnesses and offers rapid diagnosis and treatment if any of these are found.

4) Freedom To Express Normal Behaviour:
These animals are provided with sufficient space, proper facilities and the company of other animals of their own kind.

5) Freedom From Fear And Distress:
These animals will live in conditions that avoid mental suffering and offer a certain level of respect and care.

And due to this continuity of checks, Freedom Foods can be traced from their farm, through to their haulier, the abattoir and even right to the store!  So you know that the animal you are about to eat has been cared for through it whole life.

The meats included in this scheme cover everything you could imagine, from eggs to beef, pork to duck and salmon to cheese!  All meats and animal products are covered by this, so you can rest assured when buying any of them.

Just look for the label!

Here are some quite simple steps to help you keep on the green road…….

If you are having trouble starting your year as green as you had hoped, then take a quick peep at the things listed below and get back into the swing of it!

1) Find Your Nearest Store:
Don’t drive miles to a store to get the cheapest prices on a few main things - visit a store you can walk to and just grab your essentials.

If you do a little shop every so often in your closest store, not only will it be there when you need it, but you will get to talk to your neighbours and maybe find some new products you never see in a larger store.

2) Find Your Nearest Products:
Apples are apples at the end of the day - but were they brought from down the road or from the other side of the world? 

If they were from a local farm, then in buying them you are helping to keep parts of your local area free from urban development and new roads - keeping wildlife close to your own homes.

3) Take A Little Less:
Always buy a bit less than you normally would of the fresh items, as we never eat everything we buy before it goes rotten!  So the less you buy in the first place, the more chance you have of eating it all when it is still nice and fresh!

It may be cheaper to buy bulk and save on packaging when ordering the larger pack sizes, but the cost of transporting and throwing away our food is just as costly!

4) Expect A Bit More:
Make sure you choose the products that are wrapped in compostable packaging.  There is no reason why vegetables these days are not packaged in compostable tray and wrapping.

If one vegetable can be presented and stored effectively using compostable wrapping, then so can nearly all others!  Make your choice right in the aisles.

If you tell the store what products you want to take home by buying them over others, then you don’t have to write in or attend meetings to get your point across.

5) Be Nosy:
Make sure you go up every aisle at least every month or so - allowing you too see new products and make new choices.  Don’t be put off by everything else in that area as you may find some tasty treasures and some eco friendly ideas.

There is more than 1 way to create the same meal - so check out frozen vegetables and canned fruit, pizza base mix and organic alternatives!  You never know what you can find hidden amongst the huge number of products in your local stores.

Going, going green…..

photo credit: comedy_nose

If you live in what is called a ‘hard water’ area, you may consider changing to ’soft’.

Now it’s not like you can change the bedrock of your house, so it would mean fitting a water softener to your existing water pipes to make the change.

But why would you go to that trouble and expense if you didn’t really have to - I mean the water still runs like normal, is clean to drink and washes dishes etc?

But there is a massive difference between the 2 types of water - and the soft water option can help you to live a more eco-friendly life.

How Can It Really?
Well, hard water contains magnesium and calcium that it picks up from the rocks on it’s path from falling as rain until it reaches your tap.  And these minerals can cause some serious damage to your plumbing and smaller white goods in the kitchen - not to mention your boiler and washing machine!

This build up of minerals in the water is then transferred into your pipes as it sits there waiting to be used - and can reduce the amount of water getting into an appliance, and cause permanent damage to the pipes as well.  Replacing either is a squeeze on natural resources and a costly exercise to boot!

And, with the capacity for water flow reduced, this can sometimes cause the appliance or boiler to have to work harder to keep the same level of function - or use more energy but give a poorer performance!

Soft water doesn’t contain any of these minerals, so leaves your pipes clean and working at their best!

How Can I Tell The Difference?
It isn’t immediately obvious which water you have got based on watching your boiler or feeling your clean clothes - but just using the water from your tap will show which water you have.

These minerals show themselves in water residue in the form of ‘lime scale’, so if you have a white patchy deposit on your shower head, grey residue left on your glass shower curtain, blobs of white ‘chalky’ stuff in your kettle, the list goes on…..

Sound familiar?

Now think of all the chemicals, cloths, scourers and time you have to spend keeping your bathroom and kitchen clean - then think of all that chemical waste!

And, think about washing your hair, hands and body.  Washing in soft water creates a lather more readily using less toiletries - and gives a more thorough clean.  People say that washing in soft water makes their skin feel better and hair look shinier!

How Big Is A Water Softener?
They will easily fit under your kitchen sink in smaller flats, or anywhere in a larger home - even a garage will do.

Basically it works on the main water pipes going in to your home or offices and changes the composition of your water before it enters your home.

Most water softeners are easily fitted and will pay for themselves within around 5 years due to the better efficiency of your heating and hot water systems, as well as in the reduced reliance of cleaning chemicals and toiletries!

And your appliances will last longer and stay efficient throughout that lifespan - and don’t worry about your appliances if you have been using hard water - as the softened water running through will eventually clear all the existing limescale!

So, taking the minerals out of your water could save you a lot of time and money.

It’s Monday and you haven’t started cooking dinner yet - so make it the start of your ‘Meat Free Mondays’ campaign!

If you are not already a vegetarian, vegan or a meat-free Monday participant - then maybe you could try it for a few weeks and see if it really makes that much difference to your lives.

There are many celebrities who have given up meat altogether including Brad Pitt and Clint Eastwood, but it can be a difficult life to continue of your diet revolves around processed foods and take-aways.

So, if you can manage to eat at home on the rather sensible day of Monday, you could easily make it a meat-free one.  For example sausage and mash with gravy; pie, chips and peas and even a roast dinner could be made using meat-free ingredients - and I have had them all and they were yummy!

And if you are eating meat on up to 6 other days of the week, I’m sure you won’t really think anything of it - however, you could be making a huge difference to people, wildlife and habitats across the globe!

Benefits In A Nutshell:
There are many good things that can come out of cutting out meat from your diet - even if it’s only for 1 day. As don’t forget that it won’t be just you - so multiply the meat your don’t eat by 1000’s of other people in your neighbourhood, and we are stopping hundreds of cattle from traipsing through the Amazon……

Meat Uses More Land To Grow - By using a field to ‘grow’ cows or sheep, we need to use another piece of land to ‘grow’ the food to feed the cows and sheep.  So meat uses more land to grow than the tasty vegetables we love.

Meat Uses More Energy To Grow - More energy goes into growing a cow than into a cauliflower - so if we ate the cauliflower instead we could save all that waiting around for the cow to be ready for slaughter.

Meat Uses New Land To Grow- More meat in our diet means more land is always needed for farming them - and in South America, we have heard that the rainforests are being cleared to feed more cattle - or more correctly, rainforests are being cleared to make us hamburgers and cheap steaks.

Meat Gives Of Methane - Cows fart!  A lot…….

Meat Cannot Be Composted - Uneaten meat cannot be composted in your garden like leftover vegetables and fruit - and may well attract vermin anyway, so the disposal of meat can become a problem for businesses - and the environment.

Vegetables Are Good For You - By taking the focus off the meat part of your dinner you may well find that you eat more vegetables in your meal instead - all good news for your health.

Your Choices:
Just as with new products and new fashions - if people don’t buy it, people won’t make it. 

So if everyone could just take 1 day a week of meat, you will see a great reduction in the meat in stores, and therefore the amount of land being used to farm them.

I’m not saying that this will be an instant reaction from the farming industry, but it will certainly make a difference over the next few years.  And from current environmental thinking we may well need to start doing this anyway.

So, why not take a stroll up the vegetarian aisle next time you are in a store and try some of the alternatives - you might quite surprise yourself with what is available, and how much you like it.

And to be honest - dinner guests will eat whatever you cook them as long as it’s tasty - and if you don’t tell the kids or the partner when you serve up a fantastic vegetarian meal - they probably won’t even know the difference and so you can easily convert dozens of people you know without any fuss!

This might sound a bit strange - but I am opting for disposable plates for my party!

I never thought I would find a positive reason to buy a disposable product - but paper plates might just be the first!

I was thinking, I don’t have a dishwasher and I only have about 10 plates and even less bowls, so hosting an 4 day munchies feast with some friends would have caused me some serious problems in the kitchen department!

Now, there was no reason to buy more crockery for the occasion as it would just sit in the cupboard for ever more as I don’t need any more - and washing up several times a day just seemed a bit of an energy drain and a huge party-pooper:  ‘Lets have some more houmus and dips!’ says a friend after beating me at Mario Kart for the 4th time, ‘Yeah sounds great, but hang on while I just quickly wash up again…..’

In come the paper plates!
So, they are disposable and I couldn’t find any in my store that were FSC approved - but they can be composted with the remnants of food still on them or biodegrade very easily - and they won’t waste hot water and detergent.

But does that make them the better choice?

If I had a larger family and/or a dishwasher then the plates would be a much better option. 

Firstly, the crockery would be well used over the following year so well worth upping the stocks - and secondly, most dishwashers are now so energy and water efficient that they are less wasteful than washing up the old fashioned way!

But when you only have a hot water cylinder and live alone - then washing up doesn’t seem like the best option.  For a start, I would have to have the boiler on most of the day to make sure that everyone can have a bath and wash their hands through the day - let alone keep filling the sink.

Yes, I could boil the kettle for the washing up water - but this is really going out of the way - especially if my not-so-eco-friendly friend offers to do the dishes for me!

After The Party:
Well, my compost heap will have a fresh layer or tough materials to stoke it’s bacteria, and the water system will have less food waste flowing through it - that’s for sure.

But will it nag at my conscience? 

Did I do the right thing?

I know that net curtains are a bit old fashioned these days - but they protect what’s inside!

So, how about a modern alternative: Blinds.

In winter, an uncovered glass window is just asking to let heat escape 24 hours a day.  So why let it?  Here are some great benefits and tips for modern window coverings - and it’s not just about heat either, but we will start there:

1) Escaping Heat:
If your window isn’t protected from the inside, all the heat from your room is going to head for the outside.  Nature likes to keep everything equal, so if the nice warm air can get outside and mix with the colder air - it will, just like cordial mixing into the glass of water.

If you don’t give the warm air a chance to get cold - all the warm air will stay in your home and keep your fuel bills down.  Blinds and curtains are the equivalent of insulation in your roof: without them the heat just escapes!

Close your blinds as soon as it gets dark outside to trap most of the daytime heat inside.  

2) Letting In The Sun:
In summer it is quite the opposite!  You want all the sunshine you can to come in the windows - flooding your home with warmth.

A net curtain in the way could be a hindrance to this - so blinds are perfectly designed to roll completely out of the way - allowing you room to fill with the sun’s rays - and keep your home warm into the evening.

Use natures power when you can! (and it’s free!)

3) Security:
Closing your window blinds when it’s dark outside is also essential for good security.  Once you lights are on and it’s dark outside - everyone can see straight into your home - with all your electrical goodies on show.

Walking in the streets when it’s dark is a great opportunity for thieves to ‘case the joint’.  They can see everything you are doing - and more importantly - they will know when you are not in!

4) Privacy:
Linked to above, but for those people who have a window actually on the street front - you don’t want people looking in, but you don’t want to shut out the sunshine - so why not fit a half-blind at head height. 

Alternatively you can now order blinds that open from the top rather than the bottom.  Ideal for letting in the light without letting in the nosey parkers!

5) Conservation:
Sunlight and UV rays can damage precious materials and paintings over time, so sometimes you would want to block out the light when it is directly shining onto a certain piece of furniture or art work.

Net curtains won’t do the trick and full curtains will make the whole room pitch black - however blinds can be adjusted to cover only the articles you want to protect, letting the rest of the room stay in sunlight!

6) Style:
And finally - why should saving energy be boring?  It isn’t, you just have to look in the right places.

There are many suppliers of trendy, fashionable, traditional, plain, black-out, bamboo and wood blinds, either fitted into the frame for extra heat and light control, hanging loose - so you can still peak around them, or top opening for privacy.

So, maybe consider using blinds to save money, save energy, protect your property and look great!

A friend recently fell in love with my bathroom after a nights sleep-over!

I have underfloor heating in there, and she just loved stepping out of the shower and onto a lovely warm floor!  The heating was installed in the bathroom and the kitchen after we moved in, and I love it!

We originally had it installed when we moved into an old Victorian terraced house - with little space for a modern kitchen - and no discernible bathroom!  The bath was sitting in a lean-to at the back of the property, with pipes running down the wall for taps and a creaky and gappy wooden door out to the garden!

We had to re-design the back of the house to fit a real bathroom and didn’t want to waste an inch of what space we had with radiators - so did a bit of research on our options for heating the 2 rooms.

I was very pleased with the result, and have not regretted it at all.

So, How Did We Do It?
Firstly, we consulted a plumber as we were needing to fit a new condensing boiler at the same time.  He said that he had been fitting more an more underfloor heating systems in the past few years - and he even had it in his house too!

It’s really simple to do as well if you are laying a new floor - as we were - and you just need to lay enough flexible cable under the surface to create an even spread and then lay the floor as usual.  We had tiles in the bathroom and bamboo in the kitchen - not a problem he said.

It also turns out that there are many other benefits to underfloor heating other than not needing to cover your walls in radiators when you really need another cupboard there!

The Main Benefits:
Where shall I start - there are so many? 

Well, for starters it is more energy efficient to run this type of heating over conventional central heating, and the average home could increase efficiency of the whole system by between 10-25% - this can rise to around 60% more efficient in offices with high ceilings. 

Think of the money and energy you could be saving - plus being warmer in your own home or office!

The main reason for the savings is because radiators heat the room by convection; that is all their hot air is forced out of the radiator and then it rises up the wall towards the ceiling.  It only descends into the room after it has cooled slightly - and then heats your head while keeping your feet cold! 

Added to this, it is standard practice to place radiators underneath windows to counter the draughts - but inevitably helps you lose heat out of the windows before it even hits your ceiling in the first place!

Also, the pipes leading to the radiators are usually running along your walls are boiling hot - losing heat as they go (well, if the pipes feel hot, then they are releasing that heat before they get to the radiators)!  Finally, your radiators need the temperature of the water inside to be around 60-70 degrees to be effective - a temperature that can only be reached by burning gas and fossil fuels.

The exact opposite is true of underfloor heating.  Firstly, the heat rises slowly out of the floor creating an ambient temperature and no draughts.  It doesn’t move warm and cold air around the room, taking dust and allergens with it - it just creates a warm room and warm toes!

Secondly, all the pipes are under your floor so are only ‘losing heat’ up into your home - which is just where you want it.  And, there is no risk of children or the elderly scalding themselves on the pipes or radiators - all the heat is safely underground.

And thirdly, underfloor heating can run at a much lower temperature, therefore can be powered by energy sources such as solar and both air and ground source heat pumps instead of burning coal, oil or gas.

Further Benefits:
There are other benefits to this form of heating other than just more efficient heating and money saving running costs, and they include:

Reduced Allergies - With no convection currents circulating around your home, you will have less trouble with floating allergens and dust.
Better Design - With no bulky, hot radiators around your walls and hallways, you can change the layout of your home to suit you - not to simply ‘fit’ in.
Reduced Maintenance - With no fiddly radiators and pipes to clean, dust or paint, you can keep your home clean and tidy - or even repaint it - without having to spend extra time, energy and resources working around these space-wasters!
Less Stress On Your Boiler - Running at lower temperatures will be better for the life-span of your boiler.

So, don’t put ‘new slippers’ on your shopping list for gifts - put ‘underfloor heating’ instead!

The old fashioned way of washing the dishes can really make a difference to your water use!

I know that there are many eco friendly dishwashers on the market, and they can well be more eco friendly in the busy family kitchen than filling up the sink all the time (if you use the economy setting, use eco friendly low-phosphate, low-chlorine detergents and stop the machine before the dry cycle). However, for those of us with too small a kitchen for an A-rated dishwasher or not enough dirty dishes to fill one up - then the humble bowl of hot soapy water is our only option!

Well, here are a few tricks to make sure that you make the most of your water, waste as little detergent as possible and really get those dishes clean!

I know it seems a bit basic to list these things, but my partner just throws everything in the same sink (greasy lasagna dishes and half-filled coffee cups alongside my nice wine glasses) and fills the sink to the very top!  An eco kitchen disaster!

Before The Wash:
Firstly, always scrape off your dirty dishes with your cutlery or a specific plastic scraper rather than rinse them under running water.  Running water speaks for itself: Out of the tap and down the drain!

If you really want to rinse your plates, then do it over a bowl or in your sink with the plug in and save the water for use with soaking your most soiled kitchenware.  I know it doesn’t sound nice to soak your oven trays in a mixture of old gravy and cold water, but you are going to rewash them later anyway - and they can’t really get any dirtier than they already are, can they?

Then just before washing up, sort your dirty utensils and crockery in order of cleanliness, with the hardly used plates and glasses first and the greasy, oily plates and pans towards the end.  I know it sounds a bit old-fashioned, but if you put all the greasy stuff in first, then the clean stuff will never get clean!  You don’t really want to add oil to the water your clean glasses are sitting in, do you?

Setting The Scene:
Now you are ready to start running the water, but first - make sure that if you don’t have a second sink or half-sink as well as your main one - then you must use a washing up bowl.

The reason is that, if you are not rinsing your stuff before washing it, then the odd cup might have some coffee still in it - now, do you want to pour that coffee into your clean water?  No.  It needs to be poured into the other sink or down the side of the bowl!

Basically, you need to keep your water as clean as possible for as long as possible through out the wash!

And, don’t worry about the hot tap pouring out cold water into the sink or bowl first, as it will probably get too hot anyway after a while - better not waste it for no reason, eh?

Also, if your hot water is through a boiler, it might be cheaper energy-wise to boil the kettle for your dishes rather than heat up the whole tank, so either coincide your washing up with your shower or use the kettle to make a cup of tea at the same time as washing up!

Also, it’s not a bad idea to have at least 2 scrubbing aids or scourers/sponges/cloths.  One for the really clean stuff, and one (or more) for the really dirty stuff.  No point wiping your cups clean with a cloth that has got burnt pasta all over it!  And, it means you can keep using them for longer as, once you ‘clean’ one gets to dirty to be ‘clean’, it can become your ‘dirty’ one for pots and pans etc.  A double life!

Washing Up, At Last:
Now, get in there with the washing up as normal, all the clean stuff in first - rinse if you have to, or better still dip in a bowl of cold water you already have to one side to avoid waste again.  However, if you don’t over-use your detergent then you shouldn’t really need to rinse it anyway.

As you move through to the dirty stuff, don’t forget to change your weapon of choice, so keeping the clean cloth or scourer clean, and getting out the tougher (dirtier) cloths or scourers as you progress!

All the while you are pouring your dirty liquids down the drain, the water should last longer for you so you don’t need to change it as early as you might normally.

When the water finally gets to dirty to clean things properly in, you can still ‘wash up’ all the remaining dirty things in the same water, but put them back on the dirty side of the sink. 

Why leave them still covered in baked-on or dried-on food until you wash up again?  Why not get them virtually clean with the already warm water so they are nearly clean for the next time!  You would have got rid of most of the grease and stains this time around with your old water.  Nice one.

Drying Up:
Don’t dry up!  Things dry themselves pretty well in just an hour or so - so leave them to it! 

Using a dish cloth to dry your things means that you make that dirty - so it will have to be washed too!  Why create more work for yourself when you should be sitting down drinking that nice cup of tea you made yourself at the beginning!

Welcome back, and I hope you are ready for more top tips for your eco friendly vegetable garden!

Moving on from just growing too many in the first place, these next 2 tips cover storage issues and gardening overload!

2)  Where can we put them all?
What could be more disappointing to the end of your growing season than to have runner beans (or whatever you grew too much of) going rotten in the fridge. 

Home grown crops - especially when grown organically - do not have the same shelf life as those brought from super stores.  They are not designed to stay fresh for a week or so for retail purposes, and if picked or dug out of the ground will only last a few days.

Yes, there are many veg that can be stored for months if you do it right, like potatoes and onions for example, but generally everything else needs to be eaten or preserved as soon as possible really - or given away to who ever will take them!

So, you need to learn which crops can be stored for a long time, those which can be frozen, veg that need processing in some way before storing, and which ones only have a short shelf life.  Then plan how many of each you can grow.

Many beans and peas can be blanched before freezing so as to increase the number of nutrients remaining in them, and others need a certain amount of other actions before they are ready for freezing or turning into preserves or chutneys, etc. 

You also need to make sure that you only freeze them in portion size amounts, otherwise when you want to eat them you have to take the whole lot out and smash off the amount you need to cook!

And do you have enough freezer space in the first place?  Most avid vegetable growers need another freezer to store all their summer veg to last them through to the winter!

Planning ahead is the key here - and if in doubt ask someone who is already growing their own crops what they do with all their veg!

3) What a waste of your land:
If you are turning over great swathes of your garden to vegetables because ‘that’s how many seeds there were in the packet’ then you are taking the fun out of your garden.

Imagine the kids playing ball and they keep tripping over plants and cane poles.  You want a few minutes to yourself on the patio but all you can see are plastic bottles and rows and rows of pots and mud!

You won’t get a moments peace either, as you will have so many crops to keep an eye on that you will constantly be out there checking on everything.  When you look out of your windows making your morning coffee - you’ll see something wrong with the plants, or something has fallen over or whatever.

You could end up out there on your afternoon off from work, tending to a huge number of plants that you might not even end up eating (see points 1 and 2).

The Answer?
Growing your own veg should be fun, and if you grow too much of one thing, then you lose that fun. 

Eating artichoke every so often is a nice treat, but when you always have another 2 in the fridge, it loses it’s speciality.  It’s not even fun to eat it anymore.

Also, if you know that you always have more of something growing outside, you may actually care less about each individual vegetable you have indoors.  For example, will you care if one parsnip goes rotten waiting to be eaten in the fridge if you have another 2 meters of them left outside to dig up?  No, you won’t. 

Too much of something actually tends to encourage waste as if you have so much - why does one matter?

This certainly wouldn’t be true if you had brought the parsnips. Every penny counts these days and you can see it when you have brought something yourself out of your wages.  But vegetables you have grown don’t seem to be worth anything, you don’t see the money and energy they have cost.

Your back yard vegetables aren’t free, so don’t treat them as such.  Value them as your time - and your time is worth more than money.

If you had a smaller oven tray - would you waste less food?

Today’s society seems to be very much about bigger products for bigger value - and for many products - bigger also equals more eco friendly, for example a larger bottle of shampoo means less packaging than 2 smaller bottles and is usually cheaper as well.

However, there are certain things that we do that a bigger just for the sake of being bigger - and this normally involves food.

Super-Size Me!
There has recently been a growing trend in ordering the largest amount of food possible in restaurants just because you can.  You tell yourself that it is ‘just a little bit more’ so it is worth it.

Well, it’s not.

Have you ever wondered how these chicken breasts or beef burgers can be so cheap?  Well, there is a reason for it - and it’s not nice. 

Large food retailers (chain restaurants, popular take-aways and large superstores) have demanded that the meat for their meals be cheaper - and to make things cheaper, you have to make more.  One quote was that large chicken factories have machines that need to process 8000 birds every hour just to make enough meat to sell at the low prices we are used to.

Around 2 million chickens are ‘processed’ every week by one of the largest factories in the US - just to break even - and that is just one.  Imagine how many chickens are ‘processed’ a week in the whole US?  Or the whole World?

Down-Size Me!
It is a hard thing to think about the minimum you could eat to be satisfied - or in the rising number of people ‘full’.  You always think ‘it would be a waste of money to buy the smaller size and finish it when for just a few pence more I could get a lot more’.  And that’s what retailers want you to think.

They have to produce so much food to keep the prices down that they are forever trying to sell you more of what you already eat to still make money.  And we fall for it every time!

Buy 1, Get 1 Free, 20% extra, 3 for the price of 2.  They are all doing the same thing - they are making the retailers money - not saving us money.

How much stuff do you buy that you don’t eat, or that goes out of date before you get the chance?  Loads.  The stats are terrible.  But they make us buy it because it’s ‘cheap’.

Well, I think you need to change you tactics - and fight back!

First Steps:
Plan your meals - by knowing what you are going to cook and eat on certain days means that there won’t be time for food to go out of date as you have planned to eat it in due time.  Buying too much food sometimes makes you unable to choose the most short-dated ingredients. 

Busy lifestyles also make us eat whatever is ‘quickest’ to prepare rather than what we should be eating - all this leads to waste.  We end up replacing the fast-food over and over again, leaving the healthy foods to sit and rot!

Don’t be lured in by special offers - they are only really there so the store doesn’t lose money.  If the store gets a great deal on 10 million of product A, then they have to sell it - so down goes the price and you buy it.  They win!

Start buying enough to be satisfied rather than full - It’s all too easy to cook to much, then try to cram it all in leaving you ready to pop!  But you don’t want to waste money and larger meals are cheaper per serving, arent’ they?

Well, only if you eat them!  So why not prepare a meal for 4 people to use bulk ingredients, but plan to divide up equally and freeze the remaining portions for another meal time.

Buy Smaller Utensils - if you only had a small oven tray, then you wouldn’t be tempted to cook more than you needed - and you would save power on your cooking as they were smaller. 

Also, rather than cooking parts of your meal at different times or all over the kitchen, why not use smaller pans and fit them all in the oven at the same time.  That way, nothing has to share trays - so the meat juices don’t ruin the potatoes!

And less to wash up - which is always good news!