AT the risk of giving you indigestion in the wake of the annual food fest that is Christmas, and before you indulge in your Hogmanay haggis, may I remind you of a most shameful national statistic: we Scots manage to produce two million tonnes of food waste every year.
The graph spikes sharply at Christmas and across the UK we chuck out the equivalent of two million turkeys and 74 million mince pies, with five million Christmas puddings going uneaten. More than a third of us admit to throwing away more food at this time than at any other point in the year. Such wanton waste is a challenge to the government's Zero Waste Plan for 70 per cent of all waste to be recycled and only five per cent to end up as landfill by 2025.
In this, progress is slow but sure. Restaurants and other food businesses have had to recycle their food waste by law since 2012 and the introduction this year of domestic food waste collections in certain Scottish local authorities goes some way to addressing the issue. More than 240,000 households in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Angus, Dumfries and Galloway, East Ayrshire, West Dunbartonshire and West Lothian have had access to the food recycling service for the first time, bringing the total to 1.3 million, or half of all households. Glasgow has piloted its own scheme and plans to bring it in across the city by January 2016 - a major task, given the density of its tenement housing.
We don't know if all those who were able to separate their food waste - turkey bones, overcooked sprouts and all - actually did so, but at least they have the choice.
Better, surely, to buy less food to begin with - and to encourage a change of mindset at grassroots level by targeting shoppers while in store. On a recent trip to France, I was impressed by an "anti-gaspi" leaflet given out at food departments of Monoprix stores. With a title roughly translated as "Nothing goes to waste, everything can be reused", it has some sound, if basic, advice for customers. Write a shopping list based on menus for the week, and stick to it; don't shop on an empty stomach (you'll buy too much); always buy in season; avoid prepared meals; freeze what is not eaten; and read the sell-by dates, as they contain a hint that some products can easily go over the recommended time.
Customers are also given information on how best to use the fridge at home with an illustration of which shelves retain which temperatures. There's also old-fashioned "granny's" advice on how to liven up old food. Bread should be stored with half a raw apple to keep it soft, and hard bread can be softened with a few seconds in the microwave.
Apple pieces can be kept white with a drizzle of lemon juice. And carrots can be revived by cooking with sugar; if that doesn't work, use them in soup. The high street chain now sells 443 products in resealable packs marked with portion sizes and has cut its own waste by 5.5 per cent in a year.
Compare that with the BOGOF, cheap-as-chips culture in British shops and supermarkets. Bon appétit.
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