Waste again!

This week I read another report about the amount of food wasted in this country. Top of the list, surprisingly, are potatoes. It seems that people feel any little sprout from the skin makes the potato unfit to eat. Simply throwing out a potato because there’s a sprout is a shocking indictment of our lack of knowledge and when money is tight it’s a dreadful shame that there are those who know no better. Second on the list were bananas. A blackening banana needs to be used and is fine in a cake or, as we often enjoyed them, in custard. There were lots of ideas suggested, including freezing them to use later. The simpler solution would be to buy fewer bananas ! Not unexpectedly salad leaves were high on the list and I find those bagged varieties quite a challenge myself. Washed in spring water with instructions to use them within one day of opening, they are often found on our compost heap. I’ve tried all sorts of ways to avoid wastage, even making soup with the sad leaves (it was dreadful!) But our local greengrocer sells growing plugs of salad leaves and these present much better value as they are happy in the fridge for a week or more and between April and October we grow our own in pots. So, what is the answer to all this waste of food and money? Education.