Food for thought: Easy steps to help cut back on waste

Addressing our shopping habits is the first step to tackling the problem of good food ending up in the bin, writes John Hearne

Next to bread, perishables such as fruit, veg, and salad are most frequently discarded.

Every year, Irish homes waste 250,000 tonnes of food. Recent survey data from the EPA suggests that much of this is bread. Two in five of us throw unused bread away.

The reasons why are not surprising. We throw it out because it passes its use-by or best-before date before we get around to eating it. And while bread is the most abandoned food, it’s followed closely by vegetables, fruit, and salad. Meanwhile, 62% of people say they simply forget to eat leftovers in time.