We all need to tell the supermarkets to bogof

BOGOF! I'm paraphrasing, of course, but that's what Gordon Brown wants us to say to all those supermarkets who're urging us to buy more food than we actually need to eat.

According to this week's Cabinet Office report on food policy, families in the UK are collectively chucking out four million tonnes – or a cool £420 – in wasted food every year.

If that's not a stark enough illustration for us, the report goes on to argue that using just 60 per cent of the food thrown away by UK households could generate enough energy to power all the homes in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

After just receiving a bill from Scottish Gas revealing that our monthly gas payments are about to double, that's certainly food for thought. But, until the PM's warning, I had been congratulating myself on doing well on the food front.

Five years ago I got rid of the microwave, which effectively put a stop to the temptation to buy ready meals, and pretty much stopped buying takeaways.

I try to cook all meals from scratch, using mostly fresh ingredients, and while I'm not exactly a master chef, I can rustle up a decent pasta, risotto, curry, chilli or roast dinner. (Of course, any compliments from the other half about my cooking have to be taken with a pinch of salt – my culinary efforts save him from having to slave over a hot stove, after all.)

Inspired by my mum, who never, ever wasted any food when I was growing up, I do try to use up leftovers, making home-made soup out of a chicken carcass, for example. I've even tried to avoid "buy-one, get-one-free" deals on fresh food that I don't think we'll get round to using.

But a lot of my smugness evaporated when the Cabinet Office report prompted me to tot up what I had thrown away in the past few days.

Since last week, I've chucked out: one packet of king prawns (an unused second pack from a BOGOF deal); half a rather squidgy cucumber still in its wrapper; one small lump of cheese of indeterminate vintage; one rhubarb yoghurt; half a bag of soggy spinach; one wizened apple and two slightly smelly blackened bananas.

None of it was really edible – unless I wanted to gamble on having a bout of gastroenteritis – but (not counting the "free" prawns) it was still at least a fiver's worth of food, all wasted without even noticing it.

Over the course of a year, that would amount to about £260 – enough to pay for a weekend away or, on a more sensible note, a large chunk of that fast escalating gas bill.

A lot of the coverage of the Cabinet Office study has suggested we're all just chucking out food willy-nilly. I'm not convinced we're quite as wasteful as that. Most of us are too busy to shop for small amounts of fresh food every day or two, and are trying to plan ahead – but without complete success.

The logistics certainly get more complicated if more than one person is doing the cooking or the shopping. We often end up buying things twice without realising what's already in the fridge, although the other half is inclined to forget the basics and arrive home with a couple of mangoes and no milk.

But from now on, I've resolved we'll be buying less food and using up what's in the kitchen before getting anything else to replace it.

The new regime started this morning when, instead of chucking out that slightly bruised banana that was looking past its best, I ate it.

It was a bit too sweet, but it was actually quite nice – as was feeling rather virtuous about not wasting food.

Panda-ing to profit?
THE news that Guo Guo, a giant panda rescued from the earthquake-hit province of Sichuan, had given birth to twins this week was enough to warm the cockles of the hardest of hearts.

But when I read in the Evening News the other night that Edinburgh Zoo is still planning to visit China this month to continue talks about bringing a pair of pandas to the Capital, my heart promptly sank.

According to the campaign group Advocates for Animals, no panda born in captivity has ever been successfully released back into the wild, so any pandas brought to Edinburgh – including any babies they gave birth to – would almost certainly die in captivity.

The experts argue the best way of helping to sustain the giant panda population would be to preserve their natural habitat – the bamboo forests of China – rather than try to breed more in zoos.

So the question needs to be asked: is this plan to bring these rare and beautiful creatures to Edinburgh really designed to save pandas, or is it just about generating more ticket sales for the zoo?

To be fair, it is admirable that the zoo has been giving the Wolong Panda Conservation and Research Centre money and equipment. But there's no excuse for trying to cash in on the misfortune of the Chinese to boost the zoo's coffers.