A professional chef has shared her hacks which could save you $1,000 a year in food waste – including using cheese rinds in soup and not peeling carrots. <br /><br />Alison Mountford, 41, has always been conscious of food waste at her home after learning how important it was use up fruit and vegetables as a previous restaurant owner.<br /><br />The mum-of-two said food is the “biggest expense” as a food business owner so would make sure it was used up.<br /><br />Now working as a marketer at culinary incubator, she teaches her children Ramona, eight and Felix, five, how to reduce their waste.<br /><br />Alison’s top tip is meal planning and using up the food you already have in your cupboard before buying more.<br /><br />She encourages people to not immediately throw away brown food as peeling back oxidised vegetables such as cabbage and brussels sprouts can reveal a perfectly usable vegetable.<br /><br />She estimates using her tips to make an effort to cut down food waste could save a family of four around $1,000 on their groceries.<br /><br />Alison, from Boston, Massachusetts, said: “I have to believe we can all do what we can.<br /><br />“An American wastes a pound (453g) of food a day which ends up being about $2,000 in waste for a family of four.<br /><br />“You could save about half of that.”<br /><br />Alison has become increasingly aware of the issues surrounding food waste – both in the home and in large food companies.<br /><br />She used to work with families and would see the amount of rubbish they were throwing out.<br /><br />Now she’s even more conscious of saving her groceries and shares her tips online.<br /><br />Alison said we should look in our cupboards to see what we already have – and make a plan around what foods are going to go off first.<br /><br />She said: “Meal planning is my best tip.<br /><br />“Just reduce what goes in your house in the first place.<br /><br />“So many people have a habit of blindly picking stuff up.<br /><br />“Even just jotting down a general idea, you’ll end up purchasing less.”<br /><br />Alison is also keen to encourage families to freeze food they are not going to use before it goes off – such as chucking in a whole banana.<br /><br />She said: “I do a lot of freezing.<br /><br />“I make sauces in the summer ready for the winter.”<br /><br />Alison also said many of the vegetables we think might not be edible may actually be fine to use – if we just peel back the layers.<br /><br />She said: “I had a cabbage that looked oxidized.<br /><br />“I just cut off the brown parts and saved the other bits.”<br /><br />She has also started gardening to grow her own vegetables – and now has peas, beans and strawberries in her garden.<br /><br />Alison said we can use leftover cheese rinds to add flavour to soup.<br /><br />“Just toss it whole into a vegetable soup and it brings extra flavour to the broth after it cooks.<br /><br />“After the soup cooks it’s bendable. You can toss it after that.”<br /><br />She also saves scraps by avoiding peeling vegetable like carrots – and just gives them a good wash instead. <br /><br />Another of her hacks is to make a garlic confit to save cloves going bad.<br /><br />Alison said: “Use your cloves of garlic going to go bad and use oil and set over medium heat, stirring occasionally.
