The challenge hasn't been too bad. It jogged my memory that I actually do spend a huge amount on food, some of which I inevitably throw away. I cheated a bit because I ate out at the weekend when I was in London, but I haven't done a supermarket shop all week.
The difficulties I've had were certainly going away for the weekend. There are things I should have put in the freezer before I left. I've been having building work done in my kitchen so I've had to work around that too. It's also been difficult to remember to prepare things to take into work - so I've had soup from the canteen a couple of days.
Overall, I haven't spent much money, which is good for someone who usually spends £50 a week on food just by popping into shops on the fly and picking things up. I was surprised at how much I already had in my cupboards that I'd forgotten about. I decided to do the challenge on a Wednesday and I hadn't done a shop for the week. I thought I didn't have any meat in the house but I looked in the freezer and I did have some. It's easy to forget what you've got. I found it pretty easy once I stopped the mindset of just shopping for that day.
I'm not too bad a cook so I can easily come up with something to make. I've made lots of soups to take to work and I've done a few stir-fries. I've found that you can freeze the fresh stir-fry packs you can buy in the shop. It says not to on the packaging but I did and it was fine. I made a few pizzas from scratch because I had flour and yeast and all the things you need in the cupboard. It doesn't take long once you've knocked up the dough a few hours in advance or the day before. I did a roast chicken with vegetables and used the leftovers to make stock. And towards the end of the week, I just Googled ingredients I had to find out what I could make with them. In total, I've only thrown away about half a bag of kale. It looked fine on Saturday morning but on Sunday when I got back it didn't look great - beyond putting it in soup!
I think the challenge has definitely made me see that I spend too much money on food. I buy stuff I don't need and I need to make better use of what I've got. It's shown me that I can use things that I would usually throw away; I used chicken bones to make a stock for soups and I've used bruised vegetables that I'd normally think were on their way out. You can freeze a lot of the things you don't think you can freeze. In the future, I'll make sure to be more rational about food and I won't waste so much. I'll still have to pick stuff up on the fly, but I won't be doing it as often.
As told to Katherine Purvis.
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