I live in Britain and am one of these folks that throw out loads. I find this is mainly because although I only feed two (myself and my husband), I tend to cook for four. It's bloody hard to cook for 2!!

http://www.kilgoreskitchen.blogspot.com

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Alice, buy a cooking book or two that teach easy ways for preparing meals for just two people. There are some very easy and delicious meals featured in these books. I had your problem myself but since cooking from these cookbooks we waste no more food. Give it a try it will save you money as well.;)

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I believe we all are very wastefull. I have been working on the amount of garbage my family throws out. Such as reusing packing in other ways, and buying items with less packaging to start with!

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Wait a sec....

>shoppers throw out approximately 30% of all the food that they buy. Half of that amount is made of up inedible items, such as bones, vegetable peelings and tea bags, and half of it is still completely edible.<

Why are they lumping bones and teabags in with food? If it's food you can eat it. So it's really only 15% of the waste is actually ''wasted food'', right?

It seems to suggest that buying bonelss/skinless and chicken and only boneless cuts of meat will reduce your waste? (what do you make stock with, then?!) And, save for putting saved tea leaves and inedible food waste in composting, which you can't do if you don't have a garden to do it in, what else are you supposed to do with it?

I hate having so much trash generated from packaging (Trader Joe's produce is the WORST!) but in the situation of buying prepared foods and meat products, safety first...and that requires sanitary packaging...but why doesn't T.J.'s use eco-friendly packaging made from corn and sugar cane by-products Bagasse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagasse &
Bioplastic/PLA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioplastic

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"encouraging supermarkets and vendors not to up-sell people into buying more than they need and encouraging shoppers to keep lists"

*snort* From a business standpoint, heck no, I would never do that. The whole point of *any* business, whether it's a supermarket or a phone company, is to make a profit. And upselling is the key to that profit. Seriously, that's the best solution they could think of ?

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I also cook for 2 since my gf is vegetarian and I am not, I often cook for 1.

I hate wasting food but I toss a lot more than I'd like to admit. I just cannot consume some things entirely before they spoil and buying portions for 1 or 2 is difficult or too expensive (a facet of the business practices Megan is speaking of).

Although, I just bought a FoodSaver vaccum sealer. I have to say its one of the greatest things I've added to my kitchen. It enables me to store things for longer preventing waste (like cheese!). The gf and i

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My post got cut off... it was supposed to end with
"The gf and I (heart) it!"

That is all. :)

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