If these figures are true we should be ashamed of ourselves

[Twinklemegan]

BBC news story

The figures here about food waste are staggering and appalling. What is going on out there? Have we lost all the life skills of our predecessors?

Thanks for posting that chickenmommy.

I came back to this thread to suggest starting a thread with left-overs recipes but then I saw your link.

Spero, I supposed you could try to point out to the daft mare that 'best before' means what it says - the food is best before that date, doesn't suddenly turn into poison on the day! It's Use By that is definite.

Food is cheap, it's that simple. It's still very very cheap to buy relatively good quality food.
Get it up to a decent price (especially for the poor producers) and people will pay more attention to using it wisely.

edam, to my eternal shame, not only did I not even try rational argument, it had been my turn to bring milk and I forgot, so I actually got in my car, drove to the supermarket and bought more milk, thus compounding my environmental crimes a hundredfold.

But when i tried to debate this a few weeks before, I quickly sensed I was on very dangerous ground - how would you do this tactfully?

(This is the same woman who confided that she washed reusable nappies at 90 degrees TWICE and seemed absolutely horrified at any suggestion this was a bit OTT.)

Oh Lord, suspect you'd be wasting your breath, woman is clearly dafter than a very daft thing indeed.

I don't know how to be tactful so I'd just explain that best before means best before you have a look at it and decide if it has gone off while use by means don't eat after that date. But if she can't work that out for herself, she'd probably have difficulty following that simple logic, tbh! You could try looking at eatwell.gov.uk, Food Standards Agency website, they might have something on it there.

This is the woman who hasn't paid her playgroup fees yet but who can find the money to pay someone to WASH HER DOG. Every week.

Sorry, unrelated rant. But those of us in the affluent west do seem to becoming very dissolcated (sp?)from reality and hyper worried about hygiene etc. I know another mother who has separate wipes for tables and hands and who travels with plastic mat for tables in restuarants?? What kind of deadly bacteria does she think is lurking there?

I buy oranges every week. Quite often there are no singles and I have to buy a net. I can almost guarantee that before I get to the last orange, one or more will be mouldy.

Fresh food seems to go off in less than a week. We've just had to throw out more than half a loaf of bread- still in date- because it's mouldy.

I tell you what Spero, moving up to the Scottish Highlands has made me reconnect with reality on every level (although I don't think I was that disconnected before). You simply have to plan your shopping carefully because it's miles to the nearest shop (and that closes at 5pm). And when you realise you've forgotten to go to the supermarket on the way home from work you've no option but to use up whatever is hanging around in the fridge.

Evenhope, do you keep your oranges in the fridge?

Maybe we should all follow my mum's example... I found a pot of herbs in her kitchen the other day with a best before date of 1984...

I am still alive after eating an egg I boiled 4 weeks ago. We have much less waste since I went gluten free as any dinner gets reheated for my lunch.

Most of our fruit goes in the fridge and any old bananas get baked into a banana loaf and put in lunchboxes.

I'm sure the people that waste the most food are also the same people who put the waste into the rubbish bin. We pay for our bin bags here - so there is a real incentive not to throw so much in there.

othersideofthechannel no, never have done

You should make it through the whole net without any going off if you do keep your oranges in the fridge. I usually have a couple in the fruit bowl so people remember they are available and eat them, and keep the remainder in the fridge. They last for weeks.

Apples keep for ages in the fridge too.