Waste Not Want Not .

870 million people go hungry each year around the world & yet we throw out , globally , 1.3 billion tonnes of food. As organisations like the United Nations , The Environmental Protection Agency & Safe Food here at home battle to reduce our food waste levels , nationally & further afield , lets look at what we can do to help the cause . 

Last month the UN published a damming report on food waste. It revealed that as much as one third of the food we produce world wide never makes it from farm to fork & ends up in food waste landfills around the world.

What is this actually costing. Food costs money to produce, if we're wasting food we're also wasting money, almost 600 billion a year according to the UN report, & if we're wasting money we're wasting resources, energy & land, in terms of water alone over half the annual average flow rate of the river Shannon is wasted each year producing food that is never eaten. It also contributes over 3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere & takes up 30% of the world's farmland. 
One of the main reasons for this level of unused food is due to the fact that people simply don't understand the difference between the use by date and sell by date . But its really very simple. "A use by date means just that , it must be used by a certain date & should not be consumed after that date. Best before is a bit more flexible, more of a guidance . It's an indication of quality. While the quality of the product may drop after the sell by date it is by no means unsafe to eat & should not be thrown out until its passed its use by date. It all comes down to common sense . Most manufactures leave leeway room in their dates anyway as consumers fridges vary by up to ten degrees, so all dates need a safety margin . 

In the case of frozen products , meat in particular, where you might have frozen them close to the use by date , it is very important to put a label on the food to clearly mark how long you have before you have to cook it. Always defrost meat slowly in the fridge so that it doesn't reach a high enough temperature for bugs to grow.When it thawed cook immediately , Never Refreeze.