A professional chef has shared a series of genius food hacks which she says could save you $1,000 a year in food waste – including using cheese rinds in soup and not peeling carrots.
Alison Mountford, 41, from Boston, Massachusetts, has always been conscious of food waste at her home after learning how important it was use up fruit and vegetables as a previous restaurant owner.
The mom-of-two said food is the ‘biggest expense’ as a food business owner so would make sure it was used up.
Now working as a marketer at culinary incubator, she teaches her children Ramona, eight and Felix, five, how to reduce their waste.
A professional chef has shared a series of genius food hacks which she says could save you $1,000 a year in food waste
Mom-of-two Alison Mountford, 41, from Boston, has always been conscious of food waste after learning how important it was use up fruit and vegetables as a previous restaurant owner
Alison’s top tip is meal planning and using up the food you already have in your cupboard before buying more.
She encourages people to not immediately throw away brown food as peeling back oxidized vegetables such as cabbage and brussels sprouts can reveal a perfectly usable vegetable.
She estimates using her tips to make an effort to cut down food waste could save a family of four around $1,000 on their groceries.
Alison said: ‘I have to believe we can all do what we can.
‘An American wastes a pound (453g) of food a day which ends up being about $2,000 in waste for a family of four. You could save about half of that.’
Alison has become increasingly aware of the issues surrounding food waste – both in the home and in large food companies.
She used to work with families and would see the amount of garbage they were throwing out.
Now she’s even more conscious of saving her groceries and shares her tips online.
Alison’s top tip is meal planning and using up the food you already have in your cupboard before buying more
Alison said we should look in our cupboards to see what we already have – and make a plan around what foods are going to go off first.
She said: ‘Meal planning is my best tip. Just reduce what goes in your house in the first place. So many people have a habit of blindly picking stuff up.
‘Even just jotting down a general idea, you’ll end up purchasing less.’
Alison is also keen to encourage families to freeze food they are not going to use before it goes off – such as chucking in a whole banana.
‘I do a lot of freezing,’ she explained. ‘I make sauces in the summer ready for the winter.’
Alison also said many of the vegetables we think might not be edible may actually be fine to use – if we just peel back the layers.
She said: ‘I had a cabbage that looked oxidized. I just cut off the brown parts and saved the other bits.’
She has also started gardening to grow her own vegetables – and now has peas, beans and strawberries in her garden.
Alison said we can use leftover cheese rinds to add flavor to soup.
‘Just toss it whole into a vegetable soup and it brings extra flavor to the broth after it cooks. After the soup cooks it’s bendable. You can toss it after that.’
She also saves scraps by avoiding peeling vegetable like carrots – and just gives them a good wash instead.
Another of her hacks is to make a garlic confit to save cloves going bad.
Alison said: ‘Use your cloves of garlic going to go bad and use oil and set over medium heat, stirring occasionally.
‘Then when browned and soft, put in fridge or freezer ready to use whenever you can use it. You won’t have to chop or peel garlic again.’
Alison said she isn’t ‘perfect’ or completely zero waste but is continuing to find ways make a difference and her family now use a bar of soap instead of washing up liquid and laundry detergent sheets.
She said: ‘My family is not super extreme.
‘I’m trying to instill in my kids a sense of control in our future.’
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