Shelf help for your kitchen

Shelf help for your kitchen

This year, The Mail on Sunday is waging war on food waste. And, as we show here, making your storecupboards work harder can mean a big – and stylish – difference 

 

Join our campaign

Every week in The Mail on Sunday we’ll be giving you all the information you need to reduce food waste – and your household bills. Plus see today’s paper for our investigations into the shocking amount of perfectly good food that’s thrown into Britain’s bins every day.

 

See your ingredients at a glance: Out of sight is often out of mind, so food hidden away in a cupboard is more likely to be forgotten about and wasted. Store dry products such as pasta and flour in clear, marked containers on open shelves. It will keep them fresher than in opened packets and let you see what you have to work with. For similar containers, try ikea.com

Keep everyday condiments to hand: It makes sense to have the things you use every day easily reachable to ensure they get used (apart from fragile and electrical items if you have young children). For a similar spice rack, try johnlewis.com. For baskets, go to oka.com

Keep everyday condiments to hand: It makes sense to have the things you use every day easily reachable to ensure they get used (apart from fragile and electrical items if you have young children). For a similar spice rack, try johnlewis.com. For baskets, go to oka.com

Display stylishly and orderly

Display stylishly and orderly

Display stylishly and orderly: Use matching or similar containers, baskets and jars across shelves to keep a cohesive feel to the kitchen

Categorise and coordinate: Try ‘zoning’ food items in groups such as breakfast, baking and sweet treats. Here, using the same jars for everything creates symmetry. For similar jars, go to ikea.com

Categorise and coordinate: Try ‘zoning’ food items in groups such as breakfast, baking and sweet treats. Here, using the same jars for everything creates symmetry. For similar jars, go to ikea.com

Five ways to save, reuse & recycle

  • Keeping food in plain sight goes beyond shelving. Think kitchen trolleys, baskets made from different materials and utilising the space underneath kitchen islands.
  • To cut down on single-use plastics try beeswax wraps (from £4.99, beegreenwraps.co.uk) or silicone bowl covers (from £6, amazon.co.uk) instead of clingfilm to help keep food fresh.
  • Store food correctly by reading labels. Leafy greens should be kept upright with their stalks in water, potatoes prefer darkness, while fresh herbs like the light. For more information, go to nhs.uk/live-well.
  • There’s no need to throw away any limp veg unless it is mouldy – revitalise carrots, celery and broccoli by trimming the bottoms then placing upright in a glass of water until crisp. Lettuce leaves, spinach and peeled potatoes can be left to soak in a bowl of water. You could also blend veg and freeze into ice-cube trays to be used in smoothies at a later date.
  • Throw any rotten food or leftovers you can’t reuse in a compost bin. This helps to turn waste into something useful.