Love Food Hate Waste: could you live without throwing food away?

To my left, someone is eating a mozzarella and tomato panini, fresh from its packaging. It smells incredible. On my right, a cheese baguette is heartily devoured. I look down at my flask of ‘fridge soup’ and sigh. A blend of stalks, offshoots and tail ends of the week’s vegetables, it is less soup, more thin, tasteless broth.

A week ago I would have emptied the flask straight down the sink, and not thought twice. It would have seemed irrelevant whether I ate it or not. But I am in the middle of a challenge, inspired by the Love Food Hate Waste campaign, not to throw away or waste any food for an entire week. Other consumers - and supermarkets - take note of my experiences! As someone who grew up in a house of seven, cooking for just one person has been a huge adjustment. I always, without fail, 'cook too much food', having no real idea of how much constitutes a portion for one. I am therefore - like most of us - a food waster.

I had high hopes this challenge would help me tighten my belt in more ways than one. It seems mad in a time when millions of people are facing financial hardship, but food waste is costing UK households £2 billion pounds each year, according to some...

To view the rest of this article - you must be a paying subscriber and Login