[Eibhlin ni Sheambrai]

Glad to see this being highlighted as there is a lot of waste of perfectly good food. People have lost their own wisdom about food and rely on the best before dates too much. How can potatoes have a best before date of two weeks, when in older times they would be stored over the whole winter as are most root vegetables.
My motto is 'best before doesn't mean worse after'.
Of course this doesn't apply to meat fish or dairy products which must be stored and used with care.
As we don't have a bin collection we have to be very careful with waste. Cooked food waste goes into the dogs !
Raw vegetable waste goes to the compost bin, also egg boxes torn up and crushed egg shells.
Old apples are put on the lawn for blackbirds and thrushes, they also eat cooking apples.
Soft fruit is used to make smoothies in the blender.
All the tougher stalks from cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli can be chopped and added to vegetable soup, once its blended before serving, no one knows.
Hard bread can be made into breadcrumbs and frozen, or into a desert, or soaked in egg to fry for french toast.(mouldy bread goes into the dogs, they don't mind)
Chicken or turkey bones are boiled to make stock for soups which can be frozen, and bones are burned in the stove.
The ash from the stove is organic as we only burn wood or turf so it is returned to the land, good for keeping weeds down in the hedgerows. Also the central heating is run by wood pellets so the ash waste from that can be composted or put directly under hedges etc.
By the time we bring all the recyclables to the local center there is not a lot left to dispose of. We visit the landfill a couple of times a year with whatever we haven't found a use for. Country living has made me so much more aware of the environment and my responsibility to help maintain the beauty and the eco-balance.