| 1. LOOK BEYOND YOUR PLATE: | Every time you eat food, think about everything that’s gone into getting it on to your plate – land, energy, water, transport, storage, marketing, natural resources, chemicals and more. Every morsel is important! |
| 2. KNOW YOUR DATES: | Use-by’ is a food safety guide and literally means don’t eat after the end of the ‘use-by date’, but ‘best before’ is a quality guide and you may still eat after the ‘best before date’ (as long as the item is not damaged, deteriorated or perished). |
| 3. PLANNING PAYS OFFS: | Taking a bit of time to plan your meals and your shopping trips is one of the most effective ways to avoid waste and save money. Always check the fridge and food cupboard and make a list before heading out for a big shop. |
| 4. GET FRESH ABOUT FOOD: | Simple, fresh, in-season food that you cook yourself is hard to beat for the budget, health and environmental wellbeing. Join the fight back against over processed and fast foods. Get real about your food! |
| 5. FARMERS MARKETS: | Going along to your local farmers market is a fun outing as well as a great way to buy food. Alternatively, sign up for a farm-to-you delivery service in your local area. |
| 6. PUTTING LEFTOVERS TO WORK: | Work and school meals are a great way to get the best out of leftovers from home-cooked meals and take-away, and a real money-saver. Lots of workplaces have kitchen facilities to store and heat BYO food.! |
| 7.KITCHEN SCALES: | Make sure your kitchen appliances include a simple set of scales to measure accurately for recipes and to help in reducing food waste. |
| 8.GROW YOUR OWN: | Join the emerging boom in home food gardening and community gardens, including in the heart of cities. Even producing small amounts of your own food makes you appreciate all food more – and you’ll not want to waste any of it! |
| 9. FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS: | Make sure you follow brand owner’s instructions on labels for food care such as ‘refrigerate after opening’ and ‘use within 3 days of opening’. Attaching your own self-adhesive label as a reminder can help you keep track. |
| 10. TAP WATER: | The quality and safety of water straight from the tap typically is excellent, water is far better for you than manufactured drinks, and there’s no need to pay a lot more for bottled waters and sugary drinks and their wasteful processing and packaging. |
| 11. VEGGIE DAYS: | You can save money, be healthy and reduce impact on the environment by having at least one no-meat day a week. There are lots of great vegetarian recipes you can add to your home-cooking repertoire. |
| 12. FRIDGE CARE: | Check the temperature and seals of your fridge regularly to make sure your food is being preserved properly and save electricity, cut carbon pollution and save money at the same time. Buy a fridge thermometer at your supermarket and keep the fridge temperature around 3-4 degrees Celsius. |
| 13. CONTAINER SAVVY | Keep lots of reusable airtight plastic containers and jars handy for storing food including leftovers in the fridge, freezer or pantry. And reuse glass jars for storage and bottles for tap water. |
| 14. SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD: | Tune into the excellent educational programs around sustainability of seafood, and opt for smaller, fast-growing, easily replaceable species like squid, sardines, oysters and mussels over more costly, large and slow-growing fish. The Marine Stewardship Council is a great source of information.. |
| 15. LABEL FOR FREEZING: | Keep self-adhesive labels and a marker pen in your kitchen drawer to label food items going into the freezer with date, description and quantity (freeze in amounts best suited to your household). |