According to estimations, about one third of the food production is wasted or lost worldwide. In the developed world, people waste around 100 kg of food per person per year. In many cultures, including Saudi Arabia, an excess of food seems to be a synonym for hospitality. Weddings and feasts, such as Ramadan, are often accompanied by extraordinary amounts of food, with the leftovers seldom ending up in the garbage bin. Not only the food itself is wasted this way, but also all the natural resources used for growing, harvesting, packaging, transporting and preserving the product.

Another thing that is wasted is your money. In the UK, for example, wasted food is estimated to cost each household from 250 to 400 pounds (SR1,500 to SR2,400) a year. The government there even started a campaign recently, “Love Food Hate Waste,” to show consumers how to keep food edible and use it in imaginative ways rather than throwing it away. Here are some easy ways to diminish food waste at home.

The easiest way to throw away less food is to buy less. Supermarkets try their best to make us purchase more than we actually need. Don’t fall for those “3 for 2” or supersized packages if you cannot consume them before the expiry date or if you don’t really need them. Do your groceries with a shopping list to make sure you don’t buy unnecessary products. Plan your meals for a week and check your fridge and cupboard before shopping. If you buy only what you need and forget about “special offers” and unhealthy snacks, you are also likely to eat less, hence achieving or keeping a healthy weight. Remember that overeating is also a form of food waste.

In case you did buy a big amount of something, preserve it in the freezer. If you live alone, for instance, and only eat a small amount of bread, freeze it directly after you buy it and take out only a few slices some time before you need them.

How often do you find something rotten in your fridge or pantry? Perhaps you even forgot that you bought a product until you nearly faint from the pungent odor when opening the fridge. In that case, it’s time to clean up your kitchen and keep it organized from now on. Make sure you place foods that are close from expiring clearly visible in the front and put new products in the back of your fridge and cupboard. If you have no idea how to use certain ingredients that are about to expire, consult the Internet to get ideas for recipes. Google, for instance, has the option to search for recipes including and excluding ingredients you choose.

If you often have food left after eating a meal, you might have to adjust the quantities you prepare. However, the occasional leftovers can be kept in the fridge or freezer for days you don’t feel like cooking. If you have small quantities of many different foods left, use them to make pizza or a savory pie, or make them into a delicious soup. Old overripe fruit can, apart from being used in a sweet pie, also be blended into smoothies or juices.

It is good to check the expiry date of products. However, if a product passes the expiry date, it does not always mean that it cannot be consumed anymore. The “Best Before” label, for instance, refers more to quality rather than food safety. Producers choose a big margin for the expiry date as a result of our “blame and claim culture.” They don’t fancy lawsuits against them from people who got sick after eating their products. So, rather than to blindly follow the date set by companies, trust your nose and eyes when judging if something is still edible or not. However, be careful with meat and eggs.

Learn how to store things. Vegetables, for example, stay fresh for longer if you wrap them in a newspaper instead of leaving them in a plastic bag in the fridge. If you open a can and do not use the whole amount, do not store the leftover in the can, but put it in an airtight container.

Using your imagination and some planning is, in other words, all you need to reduce food waste, save money and help the environment a little. With the world population still growing, wastage of food is something we cannot afford, so let’s all do our part by consuming less!