HelloFresh has teamed up with OzHarvest to shed some light on the food waste Australians are literally throwing in the bin each week. The stats are wild – Aussie households send 2.5 million tonnes of good food waste a year, which works out to around 20 kgs per household each month. That can notch up to $2,500 a household each year. Stats not your thing? They’ve gone beyond the numbers and recruited trainer and designer Brooke Jowett to don the ‘Weight of Food Waste Vest’ for a day. Yep now that’s a waste workout if we’ve ever seen one!

What to do about waste, what to do about waste…. Brooke kindly shared a few tips and tricks to get started:

• Mindful meal planning: be mindful of what you’re putting in your body – and your fridge. Before you go shopping, take a really good look at what you already have and see what needs to be used up. To make it easier to use up the food you have, OzHarvest have created a free Use It Up tape to mark out an area in your fridge or pantry for food that needs eating first. By making a habit of meal planning and knowing what you’ve got in the kitchen, you’re more likely to only purchase the ingredients you need.

• Portion with a purpose: portioning one of the best ways to avoid overeating – plus it can save you money and reduce your food waste too. Meal kit delivery services like HelloFresh make portioning easy, as they come with pre-portioned ingredients – meaning everything in your box ends up on your plate.

• Store food sustainably: Proper storage can add days, weeks and even months to your food. Invest in some good containers to keep food fresh for longer… I’ve said goodbye to my fruit bowl and instead keep my fresh produce in the fridge to give it the longest life possible.

• And avoid the leftover trap! Leftovers can be a convenient future meal, but they’ve got a dark side too. More often than not, leftovers tend to be picked at and not fully eaten, or worse forgotten. To avoid the leftover trap, plan ahead and only cook what you will realistically eat.