Make every day a Stop Food Waste Day

We all care about not wasting food and research shows us that one of the easiest ways to reduce food waste is to simply 'use it up'.

Using up leftover vegetables in a delicious stirfry

Sometimes it’s just a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’, so people who don’t waste food have a special area in their fridge and pantry for older items that need using up.

GREAT Sorts go FIFO (First In, First Out) and rotate existing items to the front when unloading groceries, so they’ll be grabbed first.

Almost everyone cooks a meal from things they already have, but if you want to make a big difference to your food waste, join the other GREAT Sorts and have a ‘use it up’ day every week.

An egg roll using up leftover vegetables

Here are some of the fabulous ways you've told us that you ‘use it up’:

  • Make a soup or stir-fry with whatever is left in your kitchen.
  • Use leftover cooked veggies in a quiche, frittata, or on a pizza.
  • Make pesto with veggie leaves and stems.
  • Use leftover meat for curries, kebabs and pasties.
  • Pile leftovers like roasted veggies, meat and cheese into tortillas or wraps
  • Blend surplus fruit into a smoothie or bake in muffins
  • Use leftover bones, meat, and veggie offcuts to make stock
  • Put extra bread to good use in bread-and-butter puddings, salads and toasties

In Australia, we throw out the equivalent of one in five bags of groceries, that’s a whopping 312kg per person per year, and sadly, 70 per cent of this wasted food is still edible. Join the other GREAT Sorts around the country who make every day a Stop Food Waste Day.

When people are stuck for inspiration, they go to Zero Waste Recipe Generator to do the heavy lifting. Simply enter your ingredients, for thousands of recipe ideas. 

Others tell us they love the 'Use it up’ recipes by OzHarvest.

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