Am I the only person on the planet who is sick and tired of being told how ‘we’ waste one third of all the food we buy?

Well I don’t. For one thing I can’t afford to. For another, I was brought up with the old ‘waste not, want not’ adage ringing in my ears. So if I’m not wasting a third of my food every week, there must be people who are wasting considerably more.

Part of the problem is how we define waste. I’ve never managed to find much use for eggshells or bones. But I do know that stale bread (provided it hasn’t actually grown a culture) makes the best toast and breadcrumbs. There are some, far more frugal even than yours truly, who swear by mouldy bread as natural penicillin and use it (with jam!) to treat sore throats.

I was brought up to know that sour milk makes good scones, or even (if you have enough of it) curd cheese. That potatoes with the odd sprout or two can be used in stews or cooked and mashed. That meat scraps can be cooked up for the dogs. And that dripping from a roast, spread on a bit of dry toast, is heavenly.

My aunts swore by cabbage water (which the cabbage had been boiled in) for their health. I even once saw two of them fighting over the last cupful. Potato water enriched gravies and soups. Cheese that had dried up and become too hard to eat could make great cheese sauce, cheese scones and cheesy flavoured bread.

But of course, few people teach that sort of frugality nowadays.

There are two sensible solutions to food waste :
1. Find a way of using it.
2. Don’t buy it in the first place.

If all else fails, just don’t tell that researcher with their Market Survey clipboard about it….