by Michael Smith
According to the Waste & Resources Action Program (WRAP), a quasi-government operation in the UK, more than one third of all food that is bought by British households ends us as waste.
Often this is due because of people simply not understanding how to store this food, especially fresh produce, whether fruit or vegetables, including potatoes, carrots, etc. and also people seem to assume that a carrot must be thrown away when it has become a little black in places or a potato when it has developed shoots; neither of which is the case.
Another thing that people seem to assume is that the “best before” date means that if it a day or two or such “out of date” it means that the food can no longer be used for human consumption and hence has too be disposed off. In most case that too is a fallacy.
One way, maybe, of reducing the amount of food that we waste in our households would be to shop for food, especially for fresh produce, whether vegetables or fruit, on a daily basis and only to buy as much as we need on the day or the next day, rather than do a weekly shop as most of us do.
But, who has the time to do this, nowadays, where in most families both father and mother go out to work and where there are also many single person households where it is also not always possible to go shopping on a daily basis.
Those of us who have that possibility of getting our produce on a daily basis, whether from a greengrocers, a farmer's market or even the fresh produce section of a supermarket,, should consider themselves blessed in this way, as they really have a great way of cutting down on the food that they waste.
In addition to that, and we have talked about this before, there is the need for many to learn and relearn proper cooking as regards to what to do with leftovers and also to learn proper ways of storing produce.
Lakeland, as we have seen in another article, has developed some storage bags for a variety of produce and I am just, at this moment, putting the Potato Bag through its paces and the way things are looking after a week of having potatoes in them is that the bag is doing a great job.
On the other hand, while it is easy to buy such storage bags and such, when it comes to potato storage, and that of most root crops, all that is required is a frost-free dark place and the crops to be stored in a canvas or burlap sack. Much like the sacks that, in the olden days, potatoes came in.
There is a source of such sacks that often is free even and that are pet shops where some feed stuffs, such as nuts, come in burlap sacks or Hessian sacks and those will hold about 2-5kg of potatoes, depending on their size. Those sacks are very often thrown away by the storekeepers, so it is well worth inquiring as they can also be used for a variety of other tasks.
There is no need, if you have the time to inquire and a friendly store or two about, to buy any special storage bags but then again, at a retail price of a little over £5 for the Potato Bag from Lakeland that also is hardly an issue, especially when it comes to keeping food fresh.
The old-timers sure had their ways but some of those, obviously, are not suitable for the urbanites and suburbanites amongst us who do not have a garden where to grown and then put up potatoes for the winter in clamps. So, other storage methods need to be found and keeping potatoes in bags in the dark and away from frost is something that can be done, for starters. And this can be achieved buy purchasing such bags from vendors or to get some freebies and DIY.
The proper storage more often than not is the deciding factor as to how well food keeps at our homes and hence the factor as to how much food – and with it money – we waste.
Waste not, want not, I was told as a child and that has always stayed with me. Still as valid today as it was then in the 1960s.
© M Smith (Veshengro), February 2009
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