A famous curling family is backing a campaign urging people to embrace their freezers and help cut food waste.
Olympic bronze medallist Eve Muirhead and her brothers Glen and Thomas, who are well used to chilly conditions, are working with Zero Waste Scotland on the initiative.
Scots throw away good food worth £1.1 billion every year despite the fact that much of it could have been frozen and eaten at a later date, Zero Waste Scotland said.
The organisation is urging people to think of their freezer before throwing away food, 1.35 million tonnes of which is discarded in Scotland every year.
READ MORE: Climber scales Ben Nevis every day to help combat depression
The Muirhead siblings, who are currently preparing for the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in February 2018, are backing the campaign.
The trio, all members of Team GB's Winter Olympic curling team, said: "With all three of us training so frequently there wasn't always time to cook from fresh every day.
"We remember that mum or dad would often batch cook nutritious meals and then they were just ready to heat through before we rushed out the door.
"We had no idea the scale of food waste in Scotland and it will make us think twice about using our freezers more now we all live away from home."
The campaign is being launched to mark European Week for Waste Reduction 2017.
READ MORE: Climber scales Ben Nevis every day to help combat depression
Iain Gulland, chief executive of Zero Waste Scotland, said: "It may be getting colder outside, but at home people could be making much better use of their freezer to get the best from their food and minimise waste.
"We know from our work in communities throughout Scotland that people are often unsure about what can and cannot be frozen.
"For example, people don't always realise it's safe to freeze almost any food before the use by date on the packaging and then defrost in the fridge.
"We need to dispel these myths and demonstrate to everyone that most food can be frozen."
Zero Waste Scotland is releasing its top "Freezer Rules", which include that it is safe to freeze food up until the use by date as freezing acts as a "'pause button" on food, and that you can freeze just about anything.
The organisation also advises people to freeze ahead to save time on busy days, but stressed that once defrosted, the "pause button" is off, so food should only be defrosted as you need it.
If you defrost raw meat or fish and then cook it thoroughly you can freeze it again, but never re-heat foods more than once, the freezer rules advise.
READ MORE: Climber scales Ben Nevis every day to help combat depression
Environment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham said: "In Scotland, we're working towards a 33% reduction in food waste by 2025.
"That's one of the most ambitious target in Europe, and everyone in Scotland has an important part to play in helping the country achieve that goal.
"It's a win-win situation - simple things like using your freezer to its full potential will save money, and help achieve our national target."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here