Have you considered switching from pumpkin carving to decorating? By doing so, you could help an effort of saving 24.5 million pumpkins from the bin. That is the frightening amount of pumpkins that national charity Hubbub expects to go to waste at Halloween this year. This huge amount of pumpkins
is worth £26.7 million and could make millions of meals, and instead they end up in the bin.
To do something about this, Hubbub has been running the #EatYourPumpkin campaign every year for the last ten years. The campaign calls on Halloween lovers to ditch the knife and give decorating a go.
The “gourd” news: Attitudes towards eating pumpkins nationally have shifted from 42% of the population knowing that you can eat your pumpkin to 59% in 2022.
When we think of eating pumpkins, it’s also worth noting that the large, cheap supermarket varieties may not always be the tastiest, as they are grown for size and looks rather than quality. In smaller grocery and health shops, there is often a wider variety of edible squashes and pumpkins available, some of them locally grown.
They offer a wide variety of flavours and textures, and may well offer something even for those who thought they didn’t like pumpkin very much.
Did you know you can eat almost every part of the pumpkin? In fact, it’s only the stalk that isn’t edible. Depending on the size, you can get an average of six meals out of a pumpkin. They make a great addition to a soup or curry and taste fantastic with a wide range of flavours including ginger, chilli, cinnamon and sage.
Mark Breen, Senior Creative Partner at Hubbub said: “For eleven years we’ve been inspiring the public to eat their pumpkins at Halloween. This year we’re sharing fun ideas to decorate pumpkins instead of carving them, to help them keep for longer and give people more time to cook them.”
Need some inspiration? Here are ten ideas to decorate your pumpkins and squashes.
Carving out quality time with kids this half term? Craft your pumpkin instead. Skip the stress (no big knives near small hands!), the mess, and save cutting for cooking. Decorating the outside instead of carving it means the whole thing stays fresh till you’re ready to cook and eat it. There’s still loads of room for creativity, spookiness, and something to show off on your windowsill or doorstep.
Visit www.hubbub.org.uk/eat-your-pumpkin for ideas to decorate yours, and for tips on how to use the skin, seeds, guts and flesh of your pumpkins and squashes for cooking delicious meals.
Whatever you can’t eat of your pumpkin, make sure to compost it. Find out more about how you can get started with composting at home, or join a community composting initiative near you at https://foodfutures.org.uk/composting.
And if you’re going to the Light Up Lancaster Explore Week at the Storey this week, keep an eye out for an installation with decorated pumpkins created by FoodFutures’ Closing Loops project.
This Halloween, let’s help squash food waste and #EatYourPumpkin.
