It’s National Pumpkin Day today and were spreading good vibes about ‘Pumpkin Pal’.
Did you know? Every year, in the UK, over 18,000 tonnes of pumpkins are thrown away at Halloween – what a waste!
- 8 million pumpkins are binned after Halloween – scary!
- 51% of consumers bin the flesh when hollowing out for carving – yikes!
- This could make 360 million portions of pumpkin pie – yum!
Plus pumpkin flesh and seeds are super tasty and packed full of vitamins and minerals:
- great source of potassium and beta-carotene in the flesh
- protein and omega-3 in the seeds
They also come in a variety of shapes and names; Sweet Dumpling, Cinderella, Crown Prince and even Uchiki Kuri who knew?!?
That’s why this Halloween we ask you to keep it Green with our top tips:
- Don’t carve a pumpkin at all, if you are not planning to eat it
- Buy a vegetable you are more likely to eat, if you don’t like the taste of pumpkin, why don’t you try using another vegetable for your Halloween carving? Popular choices are butternut squash or turnips.
- If you buy a pumpkin, eat the flesh, hollow out the pumpkin as much as possible – this will not only help the pumpkin glow more birghtly but it also means you will have more pumpkin flesh to eat. Don’t forget to eat the seeds too!
- Use as a food caddy, once the pumpkin has done it’s job and scared away bad spirits, use it as a temporary food caddy to collect food scraps ready for composting or put them directly into your green waste bin at home
- Don’t buy a plastic pumpkins, plastic pumpkins don’t biodegrade or compost away and are a waste of precious resources for one day every year.