Half of all food thrown away!

[Kaz]

Nail on the head I reckon, Cromwell!

[Oojamaflip]

I did throw away far too much food after Christmas.

[Weka]

I only throw away what the compost, chickens or worms can't have. One bag a fortnight, and that's with nappies.

We got the same story here. It did sound excessive to me as we'll.

[Workingman]

I have just watched the "Tonight" programme on ITV dealing with this problem, so how did it turn out?

Well, having scoured the country for the extremes: a self-confessed food waster, a flooded-out farmer, a local authority, and various supermarket chains. It could not substantiate the 50% waste figure, but it did a good job of making us believe the figure.

Sure, the farmer had a lot of waste, mainly because of the weather. The NFU accepts this, but he was one farmer out of thousands. The food waster managed to save £66 of her normal £147 shopping bill. Now that looks like nearly 50%, but she shopped differently, and she was in no way representative of a normal shopper. The local authority, Peterborough, collected about two container loads of food waste in a week. That represents nothing like the amount of food bought in the same week. Research suggested that supermarkets threw away 300,000 tonnes of food in a year, say 1,000 tonnes a day. A country of 60 million people needs more than 2,000 tonnes of food every day, so no 50% there.

The truth is that it could not come up with anything like 50% waste, but what it did do is put us on the guilt trip - time, after time, after time.

Yes, we do waste food, but stop crying Wolf over it and stick to facts.

[Kaz]

I caught part of the programme Frank, the bit about the wasteful shopper. Surely few people are as wasteful as her - she had me goggle-eyed

[Workingman]

Wasn't she the complete idiot Kaz - no bits missing?

Who buys two packs of sausages to throw one away? And even when she was on her 'purge' she binned a perfectly good chicken carcass and enough veg to make a smashing soup.... and that was with the aid of a chef!

Some people are beyond help!

[Kaz]

Totally

[cromwell]

This is a trick the politicians use though, isn't it? The "IT'S ALL YOUR OWN FAULT" guilt trip.

Remember when they were quizzed on rising energy bills, in particular how much money their green initiatives were costing consumers? Their reply was to sneer that people should shop around for the best deal, that we "wasted money" by not unplugging our fully charged mobile phones from the socket. It was in fact, all our own fault - according to them.

Rising petrol prices? We use our cars too much for short journeys.

Having to sell your house to pay for care in your old age? We are living too long.

Overcrowded roads? We should all be walking or cycling or taking the bus instead of being so inconsiderate as to drive around.

etc etc.

So when food prices shoot up this coming year, it will be all our own fault because we throw too much food away.

QED.

[debih]

I haven't seen the programme yet but I did record it to watch today but didn't get round to it.

[Workingman]

So when food prices shoot up this coming year, it will be all our own fault because we throw too much food away.

QED.

Ah, now I get! And you are so right.

When the prices go up, and they will, it will be our fault... and all the politicians will be pointing at THAT report and one-sided programmes from TV and saying "We told you so".