Reducing food waste with Oddbox (and £5 off!)

sneak peak: Oddbox is a convenient way to buy your groceries whilst having a positive individual impact on the planet by reducing food waste

I was introduced to Oddbox by a friend around when I first moved to London towards the end of last year, and for some reason it took me all the way until last month to actually sign up. As expected, it's amazing and I love it and I'm now going to tell you why.

Currently, they're only in London but if you contact them to let them know where the demand is, they may well head your way next...

Three reasons why you should try Oddbox:

1. It reduces food waste (duh)
Oddbox distributes produce that would otherwise have ended up in landfill, for any number of reasons. Some stuff is wonky (as the name suggests), some is surplus, some is too big/too small/too anything (my asparagus this week was 'too thin'), some is discoloured or marked, some is the wrong ripeness - supermarkets are notoriously picky, so it could quite conceivably be anything. Astonishingly enough, it all looks exactly the same when chopped up and cooked, and tastes exactly the same when eaten.

2. It's so cheap
Since my whole entire diet is vegetables, I go for the medium veg box which is designed to feed a family of three for four meals. 3 people x 4 meals = 12 meals. Taking into account the likes of pasta pesto for lunch, the odd porridge for supper when I'm in a giant rush, and a meal out here and there, a medium box could quite happily last me up to two weeks. I currently get my boxes fortnightly but you can get them weekly too. I supplement the boxes with a supermarket shop for things like pasta, cous cous, lentils, tofu etc. once every few weeks but my overall spending on food has gone way down, and especially in extortionate London this is definitely a bonus.

3. Hello, broadened five-a-day horizons
I hadn't cooked a beetroot before I received one in my Oddbox, for one reason and one alone: it dyes everything. I was nervy of ending up with an entirely pink-tinged kitchen, but when a beetroot landed on my doorstep, I had no choice but to face up to it. Surprise surprise, it was very easy and very tasty and didn't stain a single thing, except my fingers for about five minutes.

I currently have an entire ginormous squash sitting in my fridge waiting to be assigned to a recipe. By using the element of surprise, Oddbox is forcing me to cook with veggies I usually wouldn't go for (I mean, we all know how un-squashy and difficult to chop up a squash is, right) but that doesn't mean I don't like them. This week, I was sent some oca (as a replacement because I opted out of cabbage, the worst of all the vegetables), which I had never seen or heard of before, but I hear it's similar to potato and am looking forward to some starchy experimenting.

Every week, you get some recipe suggestions for your produce as well so if you're completely stumped on what to cook, you have some ready-made inspiration at your fingertips.

Bargain box
Why not give it a go? To tempt you, I have a referral code which gives both you and me £5 off a box - you get a good deal, I get a good deal, the planet gets a good deal, we both get fun fruits and veggies, and we support a good company too!

Order your box through this link for your £5 off! Or if you want, you can just go to Oddbox's website your own way and pay the normal (still very reasonable) price without the £5 off.

*Disclaimer: in case it wasn't already obvious, I get £5 off if you order your discounted box using my link which would be super nice because London is expensive. Feel free to not do that if you don't want to.