Three ways to make use of your Jack-o-lantern pumpkins after Halloween

What’s Halloween without a pumpkin? Pumpkins are an indisputable symbol of Halloween, but once the Jack-o-lantern lights go out, they can become a big source of food waste.

Each year, an estimated 30.4 million pumpkins are bought each year for Halloween to have scary faces carved into them and placed in the window or on the porch for decoration.

However, more than half (15.8 million) of these pumpkins will go uneaten and thrown away as waste, according to food charity Hubbub. That’s the equivalent of 95 million meals going into the bin.

But not only are pumpkins delicious and versatile, but they are also highly nutritious. Nearly every part of the pumpkin is edible, from the seeds to the flesh to the skin, and it is rich in potassium, carotenes and vitamin C, as well as fibre.

So instead of putting your pumpkin in the bin this year, here are three ways you can make use of your leftover Jack-o-lanterns.

Cook and enjoy your pumpkin

Food editor and chef Emily Gussin loves pumpkins so much that she recently published her cookbook Don’t Waste Your Pumpkin. Addressing concerns about whether a carved pumpkin can be eaten, she reassures Yahoo UK that they are perfectly edible within one or two days of carving.

She explains: "First, wash your pumpkin with warm water to remove any dirt then dry well. Make sure any tools you use to carve it are clean too, sterilising anything that’s not usually used for food in boiling water.

"Remove the base or back of the pumpkin to scrape out the insides – keeping the stem intact will help it last longer. Make sure you remove all of the pulp and seeds to keep moisture at bay (these are great for stock).

"Put your pumpkin in a window rather than outside, in a cool spot, and use an LED candle rather than an open flame. Only leave it for a day or two, before rinsing and cooking."

To cook your pumpkin, Gussin suggests: "They're delicious in soups, salads and curries, but equally brilliant in sweet dishes. In my book I have a few sweet recipes that use grated pumpkin, which is a really easy way to cook with them. There's a pumpkin spice cake with cream cheese frosting, a bit like a carrot cake, and pumpkin fritters which are freeform doughnuts coated in cinnamon sugar."

If you find yourself with too much pumpkin on your hands, or you’re running out of time to use it up, don’t fret - you can make it last longer.

"If you're running out of time on your pumpkin, I'd roast it up then mash it into a puree," Gussin advises.

"It will keep in the fridge for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 6 months. You can use it as the base of a pasta sauce, stirred through spaghetti with mascarpone or as a layer in a lasagne, or use it to make pancakes or a cheesecake."

Don’t Waste Your Pumpkin by Emily Gussin is published by Murdoch Books

Turn your pumpkin into skin and haircare

Pumpkins have components that can have beneficial effects on the skin and hair, according to skincare expert Bella von Nesselrode, who works with Ripe Hair and Beauty.

Your Jack-o-lantern is full of vitamin A, C, and E, as well as flavonoids and carotenoids, which can have anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-histaminic, and anti-microbial effects, she adds.

Some of the potential benefits and practical uses of pumpkin seed oil - when applied topically - includes helping wounds to heal by increasing the content of bioactive components like tocopherols, fatty acids and phystosterols; helping treat chronic hand eczema by reducing inflammation and resolving lesions; and massaging into the scalp to help prevent hair loss.

In order to make pumpkin seed oil at home using the insides of your Halloween pumpkin, von Nesselrode says: "The easiest way to make pumpkin seed oil at home is to blend the seeds into a paste, then warm the paste in bain-marie (a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water) to release the oil."

Donate your pumpkin to a zoo or farm

Some zoos, local farms, or wildlife centres may accept pumpkins that are still in good shape to be fed to their animals.

For example, this year, a farm in Old Amersham, Buckinghamshire, is asking locals to pass their pumpkin leftovers for their pigs. Olivia Mikhail, owner of Kew Little Pigs, told The Bucks Herald: "Our pigs simply love a pumpkin snack, so please do think of us when you are thinking about what to do with yours!"

Make sure you call ahead to see if your local zoo, farm or wildlife centre is taking leftover pumpkins!

Some people may be tempted to leave their pumpkins in the woods for wildlife to eat. However, Forestry England has urged against doing this, as it can cause harm to native wildlife.

Kate Wollen, assistant ecologist at Forestry England, said: "We see many posts on social media encouraging people to leave pumpkins in the woods for wildlife to eat, but please do not do this. Pumpkins are not natural to the woodland and while some wildlife may enjoy a tasty snack it can make others, such as hedgehogs, very poorly.

"Feeding pumpkins, or any other food in the forest, to birds, foxes, badgers, deer, and boar can make them unwell and can spread disease.

"Pumpkins are also often decorated and have things such as candles in them. Animals eating the pumpkins could then eat a foreign object and this could kill them."

Read more about Halloween:

• 10 low-sugar Halloween treats for kids (Yahoo Life UK, 3-min read)

• Pumpkin soup and DIY fake blood: how to be more sustainable this Halloween (The Guardian, 7-min read)

• Give children stickers or playdough instead of Halloween sweets, dental surgeons say (Sky News, 1-min read)