You can eat better, healthier and save yourself the cost of wasted food by simply employing some helpful tips to prevent food from going to waste. Jumia Food, Nigeria’s No. 1 online food ordering app, shares some of the ways to prevent food from going to waste.

Store The Food Properly

This is quite obvious, however, it is sometimes ignored when food is being kept away or stored. You can easily store your food by refrigerating (for foods or fruits like lettuce, cabbage, apples, oranges, cucumbers etc.), keeping in a cool dark place (for foods like potatoes, onions, garlic etc.) and leaving it out on the kitchen counter (for food or fruits like whole watermelon, plantains, tomatoes, avocados etc.)

Keep It in Plain Sight

For food that spoil easily like dairy products, leave them at the door of your fridge or on the kitchen counter so you are more likely to grab and consume them often. Sometimes food goes to waste not because we intend to let it happen, but because we totally forgot we had them in the first place. Keeping these foods that spoil easily in plain sight will reduce its chances of going to waste.

Swap Food Smartly

If a recipe calls for a particular ingredient rather than going out to the store to get it, consider if you have anything at home that will make a nice swap for the ingredient. This way you’re less likely to have food going to waste because you were not able to use them on time.

Try To Come Up with Several Uses for Your Food Items

This isn’t as hard as it might sound. The best part of food is how versatile it can at times be. One food item can be used in many different ways and a visit to a recipe book or online food websites will open you up to the many uses of individual food items. This way rather than letting your food go to waste, you can simply ‘multitask your ingredients’ by using it in another way.

Use Them For Natural Beauty Recipes

Rather than letting that ‘over-ripe’ banana go to waste, why don’t you use it to make a face scrub that will soften your skin? You can also use foods like old yoghurt and leftover nuts to make a foot scrub to soften the skin of your feet. These are just some of the many ways food can be used as ‘beauty ingredients’ instead of being wasted.