After many of us in the UK enjoyed a very indulgent Christmas and New Year, it may have come as a surprise to hear that as a nation, we also wasted much food that could have been eaten. After witnessing 3 hungry teenagers take full advantage of our over stocked kitchen, I wondered if there had even been as much as a morsel of wasted food in our house. Especially as my middle child’s favourite Christmas present of a sandwich press seemed to be permanently glowing on standby. It had not only inspired sandwich creations only dreamt of but its constant use heated the kitchen better than any Aga. My children could not have been the only ones who had made a concerted effort to clean their plates over the holidays. That is, if you go by the number of targeted features on tv now focused on losing weight and the competing advertisements for ‘diet’ pills, meal replacements and fitness DVDs. If the UK is really throwing away so much edible food, why is my gym now packed with new members?

Incredibly, research from the supermarket, Sainsbury’s, found that people actually throw away more food that was once edible over the festive season. Rather than this simply being the consequence of buying too much food and reaching mince pie tipping point early, Sainsbury’s has reported a different root cause. Their research showed that festive food is more likely to be wasted because people do not know how to prepare and cook it. And if that isn’t bad enough, according to the waste and recycling advisory body, Wrap, we aren’t much better at thinking before binning household food waste during the rest of the year, either.

The problem with food waste is not just a case of finding ways to get rid of it all besides making a giant food waste mountain. It has now become a global problem with far-reaching implications. Depressingly, it is estimated that worldwide, 30% of agricultural land is used to grow food that is eventually wasted every year. Of course, the waste also generates greenhouse gasses over its lifetime and this will only increase as the population grows and the demand for more agricultural land to feed the world continues.

In the UK, previous efforts from food manufacturers, supermarkets and every part of the food supply chain to encourage us to reduce our food waste have been largely successful. However, Wrap is now saying that we have hit a food waste plateau. Using figures from 2015, they estimate that the UK throws away 4.4m tonnes of avoidable household food waste, annually. This is food that was edible at some point but for whatever reason was binned or composted. In effect, each household in the UK is wasting the equivalent of £470 worth of food every year which seems like a shocking number of supermarket trollies. Wrap attributes the fall in food prices and rising income since 2014 as being behind the food waste plateau.

However, I find this explanation hard to believe considering the unrelenting aftershocks still felt from our annus horribilis 2016. As everyone knows, the result of the UK referendum has changed everything and is still causing the pound to tank, food prices to rise and incomes to be anything but certain. Surely, if Wrap had some more recent figures post 2015, they would show that it has also affected the level of household food waste and worked as an incentive to reduce it. Even superhuman Jamie Oliver has had to close 6 restaurants because of the rising costs in a tough market and ‘pressures and unknowns’! If he can’t make the Brexit vote fallout work then how are the rest of us going to do it?

Without a crystal ball, it is difficult to predict if the Brexit unknowns and political shenanigans happening afar in 2017 will help to continue a downward trend in UK household food waste. How will people react while they tighten their belts amid a growing climate of uncertainty? Will it prompt people to shop wisely, plan their meals carefully in advance and cook everything from scratch? Will there be a growing demand for food with longer and longer ‘use by’ dates? Will ‘leftovers’ become this year’s biggest trend among foodies? Will vegetable peelings overtake spiralised courgetti ‘noodles’ as the new anti-carb?

Only time will tell as we wait for 2017 to pan out. But even if recent circumstances have meant that we are already starting to reduce our food waste, it is still worth mentioning the obvious (and not so obvious) things that you can do to limit your ‘avoidable’ waste.

1. First and foremost, the obvious. Make a shopping list, stick to it and don’t buy too much of it. Pretty straightforward, I think.
2. Don’t shop when you are hungry. Again, we’ve all found out the hard way when our stomachs rule the supermarket aisles, that we buy too much of the wrong things. To make it worse, when our brains finally kick in at home, we return again to buy what we actually needed. Shop when your brain is stronger than your stomach.
3. Learn from your mistakes or at least try to remember them. If you know from past purchases that no one likes a particular flavour of bagel etc; don’t buy it just because they are out of the ones that they do like. No one is going to appreciate that you tried to get the right one. They will only remind you how much they don’t like the one you bought them, if they actually eat it.
4. When you do buy too much food or if your plans change and you can see that something is threatening to go off, freeze it. Yes, it is a slightly ‘sticking plaster’ solution but at least it buys you time to figure out what you are going to do with it.
5. If you cannot freeze it then be a bit social. Why not invite people over for a meal? Or cook it and deliver it to someone who could use it. After all, if they can’t use it then they’ll freeze it!
6. Don’t forget that teenagers are particularly good at making surplus food disappear. They will eat just about anything served to them, especially if it is stuffed into a toasted sandwich, because they are always hungry.
7. If all else fails and there is no way to cook it, preserve it, freeze it or give it to someone else then you must compost or bin it. Under no circumstances eat it because you cannot bear the thought of ‘wasting it’. Do not treat your body as a bin (that is an entirely different blog).

Now for the recipe. This week, another way to use up stale bread besides turning it into bruschetta, croutons or breadcrumbs. Pappa al Pomodoro is a classic Italian country soup and is a great winter warm-up that will also fuel you up before bracing the elements.