FOOD WASTE

Everyone talks about packaging waste despite its value in preserving food. Hardly anyone talks about food waste despite its potentially greater consequences. Until now. A new book Waste : Uncovering the Global Food Scandal by Tristram Stuart refines earlier research to calculate the amount we throw away in Britain, including:

• 1.6 billion apples a year, 27 per person
• 484 million unopened yogurts
• 2.6 billion slices of bread
• £6 worth of bananas each.

It all adds up to one quarter of our total purchases, around 5.4 million tonnes – yes, 5,400,000,000 kg. Just as with diet, obesity, exercise and health, we should start practising what we are preached.