Redbridge offers FREE cookery demo with professional chef to combat food waste
Published: 22 May 2024
Redbridge Council is running a FREE cookery event in the borough for local people to help raise awareness of the harmful impact of food waste on the environment.
Join the Council’s Neighbourhood Team and professional chef Mark Borrell to sharpen up your culinary skills and learn how to cook with leftovers. Discover how to make nutritious, filling meals out of some of the most common foods items found lingering in the fridge.
FREE cookery session:
Friday 24 May, 11.30am-1.30pm, at St Pauls Church, Hainault IG7 4NZ
During the two-hour live cookery demonstration the team will also be sharing recipes and top tips on food storage, reducing food waste, eating well of less, and how to save up to £70 a month from cutting back on food waste.
The event is suitable for all cooking levels and confidence levels and there’s no need to book a place, just turn up.
Got a little too much on your plate? Lots of us do, with a large amount of the food we buy or make ending up in the bin. Wasting food costs you money, and feeds climate change.
Last year over 29,000 tonnes of food waste was collected from wheelie bins in the borough
National waste prevention group WRAP estimates that up to 73% of food waste produced nationally could have been saved from the bin as it was edible. This means in Redbridge alone, we threw away the equivalent of up to 42 million roast dinners last year.
Everything we throw away has an impact on our environment and contributes to climate change. Because it’s not just the food we’re wasting – it’s the resources that go into producing it that get wasted too.
There are lots of ways to cut back on food waste, and if you don’t make it to the cookery session here’s a few tips to get you started:
Portion planning and buying
Make a shopping list to help you stick to only buying what you need, and when it comes to mealtimes, serve the right amount of food. Why not try this useful portion planner to help with serving sizes: https://lovefoodhatewaste.com/portion-planner
Fridge optimisation
Did you know that your fridge should be below 5°C? In fact, the average UK fridge temperature is set at a way too hot 7°C. This is terrible news for milk and other food items kept in the fridge, which can perish quickly when not stored at the right temperature.
Find out more about fridge temperatures on: https://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/article/chill-fridge-out?_ga=2.190044905.317125162.1612275985-2076548065.1588605611
Date labels
Do you know the difference between ‘Use By’, ‘Best Before’ and ‘Display Until /Sell By’ dates? Check this guide to clear up any confusion with date labels, and to make sure you’re not throwing away food unnecessarily:
https://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/about-date-labels
Using up leftovers
Why not explore lots of tasty recipes from Love Food, Hate Waste, many of which can be used from leftovers that you might already have. Save money and the planet by checking the recipes out on: https://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/recipes
Food storage
Not sure where to store foods to make them last longer? Unsure of what you can and can’t freeze, and what the correct way of defrosting is? Find out this and much more in Love Food, Hate Waste’s A-Z of food storage: https://lovefoodhatewaste.com/article/food-storage-a-z
For more information, advice or handy tips to cut back on food waste head to: https://www.redbridge.gov.uk/our-streets/
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