Did you know that the average household produces 0.99 tonnes of waste every year? And a whopping 25-50% of that is food waste! (EPA Ireland Figures). It is more important than ever to be vigilant to reduce our food waste. With your tots growing and developing it is the perfect opportunity to instil good habits; 'encourage by doing' to ensure they learn how to reduce their environmental impact. This will develop into good habits for life.
These simple steps can drastically reduce the amount of food wasted after each meal, including lunchboxes!
1. Portion Control
Our Family Portion Set of portioned BPA Free containers are ideal to gauge how much to cook at each meal avoiding food waste. The pots allow you to be in the know of how much to cook for each family member, such as a toddler, child and adult! Ideal for batch cooking, they are dishwasher, microwave and freezer friendly!
2. Spice up Mealtimes
Introduce your family to a variety of foods to ensure they don’t get bored or refuse to eat certain ingredients. Even tiny taste buds don’t enjoy the same things from week to week. Baby and family friendly recipes like our Chicken Avocado Green Bean Puree and Chicken Pesto Zoodles are a great way to introduce fun, new foods to your family. To avoid food waste leftovers can be refrigerated or frozen in our Family Portion Set portion pots.
3. Food Packaging
From tinfoil on sandwiches and covering plates of leftovers, a lot of household waste comes from food packaging. Using reusable containers to store and transport food, you can avoid unnecessary waste. We love using our reusable and durable Family Portion Set of BPA free pots to store food in the cupboards, fridge and freezer. They are great on the go too!
At Mummy Cooks, we recommend recycling all supermarket packaging when possible. Beware that you cannot recycle used, unwashed food containers as they will only contaminate the rest. Wash out empty biscuit tins and jars to store homemade goods, or for gifting perishable goods to friends rather than throwing them away.
4. Buy in Bulk and Batch Cook
Since 1/3 of food we buy ends up in the bin, try to be more vigilant when doing your weekly shop. Focus on buying products the whole family will actually eat, rather than watching it pass its prime in the cupboard. Our Family Portion Set of containers makes freezing batch cooked meals easy to both organise and portion. This will ensure that you don’t defrost too much at a time. This Chilli recipe is ideal for the whole family, and perfect to batch cook and freeze.
Top Tip: Freeze your chopped raw onions, veg or herbs when you overbuy. Great to save time on those hectic days, they will freeze for up to 3 months. Check out How to Freeze Chocolate too if there is a chocolate overload in your house!
Remember
Our Mummy Cooks Family Portion Set of portioned pots are an ideal way to minimise both food and packaging waste in your home. They are:
- A simple and efficient way to control portion sizes.
- Great for bringing food on the go and stacking in the fridge, freezer or cupboard.
- Dishwasher, microwave and freezer friendly to avoid excess packaging or food waste.
- BPA free, so that no nasty chemicals (often found in plastics) are seeping into your food.
- Perfect to organise and store dried cupboard staples.
- Easy to organise! All the Large Mixed Set containers all have the same sized lid so no time is wasted fumbling in the press for that matching lid to your container.
- Along with managing food waste, always separate rubbish from recycling, and ensure to wash all recyclables to avoid contamination.
- Invest in an organic food bin for items such as potato peels, fruit cores and crusts.
- Take regular trips to the local bottle bank with your kids for a fun way to teach them about recycling.
By instilling good habits in not only your little ones, but the whole family, they will be easy to practice in your day to day life.
