Our thinking

Spruce-up your sprouts

24 February, 2020

Unsurprisingly, Christmas is a time of year where we waste a lot of food. In the UK alone, we throw out 7 million tonnes of food every year – not least of which comes from Christmas dinners.

We’re all familiar with the delight of indulging in a leftover-turkey sandwich on Boxing Day, but beyond the birds, how else can we avoid the food waste, you ask? One estimate suggests that we waste 7.1 million pigs in blankets – why not add them to the turkey sandwich? For those that didn’t eat their sprouts, why not try making a gratin? Or a leftover soup made from parsnips, apple and sage? On the sweeter side of things, this mince pie ice-cream looks like a delicious version of festive leftovers!

If the fridge is as full as your belly at Christmas, opt for the freezer! Working with our friends at Nomad Foods has taught us about the variety of what you can freeze. For example, it was found that 235,000 chickens are wasted every day, because people don’t know how to store poultry properly, that can actually be safely stored in the freezer for up to a year. And, in the unlikely event that you can’t finish that bottle of wine, freezing the leftovers in an ice-cube tray makes for a perfect stock for a risotto when you’ve had one too many roast dinners.

If you really can’t avoid the temptation to over-indulge, and you’re too full of food to cook the leftovers, why not take advantage of one of the many food-sharing apps like Olio or the People’s Fridge in Brixton to share the Christmas spirit and reduce your environmental impact?