Wasted food – once you start seeing it, you can’t unsee it. Parties, functions, restaurants, planes, lunchboxes, the veggie draw in the fridge… it honestly haunts me. Even if you don’t care about the altruistic reasons to avoid food wastage, there are heaps of benefits to you personally – you save TIME, less time spent cooking when you eat your leftovers! Less time spent shopping when you whip something up with what’s in the fridge rather than heading to the supermarket. You save MONEY – this one’s a no-brainer, every time food hits the bin, that’s cold, hard, cash you’re throwing out. It’s estimated that a quarter of all food purchased in Australia ends up wasted…. So, if you spend $150 a week on food, and waste food like the average Australian, that’s just shy of $2,000 you’re putting in the bin every year!! Basically, you could pay for a Thermomix in fourteen months just by avoiding food waste.
So embrace those leftovers and bits and pieces in the fridge, and I’m on a mission to make it easy for you! Raw veggies that are on their last legs – my pick is putting them in a pureed soup (get my Thermomix soup guide here). Fruit that’s looking a lack-lustre, blend it up into a smoothie (get my Thermomix smoothie guide here!). Leftover curry – add some noodles and coconut milk and turn into a laksa. Leftover risotto – fry up into arancini balls. Leftover roast veggies – turn into a frittata. Leftover rice – turn into a tuna bake or rice pudding. Leftover pasta – serve with a fried egg on top. Heaps of rocket, spinach or soft herbs and no idea what to do with them? Make a pesto! Thin it out with some extra olive oil, and you’ve got a pasta sauce. Milk about to go off? Turn into fresh ricotta! There are so many options, you’ve just got to think a little creatively! And honestly, having a Thermomix or thermo cooker REALLY helps – you’ve got the resources to nail this 😊
Annually, it is estimated US$100 billion dollars of food is wasted globally, yet it would cost only US$30 billion to feed the world’s 870 million chronically malnourished. Yes, it’s a huge problem, but WE have the power to make a difference in our kitchens.
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” ~ Anne Frank.
Alyce xo
P.S. If you want the full collection of my Thermomix "waste not" guides, then you need my cookbooks Everyday Thermo Cooking and Thermo Cooker Fresh Favourites - they'll step you through my waste-not recipes and provide all my tips and tricks! We've got this.
