I'm now looking at the third of the four new messages in the news this week that affect the terrible guilt I feel about what sort of food I should be buying...

1) http://www.thoughts.com/rose22/blog/the-politics-of-food -par t-1-gordon-ramsay-94914/   
2) http://www.thoughts.com/rose22/blog/the-politics-of-food-par t-2-gm-and-food-prices-94915/ 
3) UK consumers throw away about a third of their food untouched http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1545785/Householders- throw-away-third-of-all-food.html  
4) Part of the looming food crisis might be being caused by the shift to producing crops fpr biofuels (yes Prius drivers, that means you might still be doing significant damage to the world...) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7186380.stm  

3.3 million tonnes. It's the weight of the food wasted by UK households every year. A third of what we buy.
It's obcene. It's disgusting. We generally think food is cheap, we think there's lots available all the time, and for those of us above the poverty line, it is. Are we really just unthinkingly wasteful? Is it all our fault?

Partly we might be influenced by "sell by" dates. We get them confused with "best before" and "use by" dates.
A quick google search reveals this rather excellent analysis by Kennet District Council (http://www.kennet.gov.uk/text/environment/food-safety/best-b efore-use-by-dates.htm not an immediately obvious source of info - but kind of makes sense if you think about their environmental health responsibilities) explaining the difference:
BEST BEFORE which may appear on packaging either as 'Best Before 31/01/00' or 'Best Before End Jan 00' This type of coding is mainly applied to non-perishable foods such as breakfast cereals and canned products and represents the date up to which the food can be reasonably expected to retain its characteristics without deterioration, provided it is stored properly. NB It is not an offence to sell foods past or approaching their best before date (within reason) provided the customer is aware of the date expiry.
USE BY dates appear on packaging as 'Use by 31/01/00' This type of coding is applied to highly perishable foods, such as milk, sandwiches, cooked meats etc, which are intended for consumption within a specified period of time. After this specified date, the food may represent a risk to human health, as a result of microbiological growth, if eaten. The use by date is designed to ensure that all highly perishable foods are sold and eaten within the period that the food could reasonably be expected to retain its characteristics without deterioration, provided it is stored properly. It is an absolute offence to sell food after its 'use by' date. This offence carries a maximum fine of £5000 per item of food sold. It is also an offence to alter the 'use by' date of any food and this offence carries the same maximum fine of £5000 per item.
DISPLAY UNTIL or SELL BY is not required by law but may be used by stores to ensure staff know when to remove products from the shelves. It is usually a few days before the 'use by' date so that the consumer has a number of days left in which to use the food.
I consider myself to have a good understanding of this sort of thing, but particularly with organic vegetables I'm intending to puree for my son, I get a bit nervous about whether it's safe to give them to him once we've passed the "sell by" date. I know rationally that I can tell if the veg is off from its colour and smell. Squashes for example can keep for months. But something about going beyond that little printed date makes me nervous.
I also know that shops tend to play it a bit safe when it comes to "best before"s and "use by"s - better to set it a couple of days early than to face the wrath and potential for suing from food poisoned customers. But the short dates means that if you can only get to the shops once a week

Maybe we also lack the kitchen skills to do anything with leftovers. We buy loads of cookery books but we rarely use them: I got Nigella Express for christmas but have only used three of her speedy food recipes. It's still faster to put a ready meal in the microwave when you're tired and the baby's not settling than to face the washing up required when preparing your own meal from scratch.

As I mentioned in the last blog on this issue that we tend to watch the TV programmes on cooking as entertainment rather than a source for inspiring us to cook our next meal.
So we get takeaways. There's been a programme on TV recently called "Taking on the Takeaway" where famous chefs set out to prove to ordinary punters that they could buy more cheaply and make more speedily a version of their favourite takeaway meal. The result was usually more tasty too. But the programme allowed the chefs to buy the ingredients before starting the clock, didn't take into account that you don't actually have to do anything but sit down ad watch TV while the takeaway is being prepared by someone else and that while a professional chefs version might be tastier, they know what they are doing!

Food technology, home economics, whatever you call it, has been squeezed by the National Curriculum in schools and become about nutrition rather than putting ingredients together in a tasty combination and deriving satisfaction from doing so. This is a shame. If kids are not cooking at home, and don't find learning about food fun, then they're not going to discover the love of food they need to want to make food or themselves.

Or we go out to eat. My parents go out to eat to celebrate things: birthdays, anniversaries, that sort of thing. Before we had a baby, we ate out a minimum of once a week. We felt it was worthwhile because we were eating good food in nice places and we felt the cost was compensated by the experience. for my parents that just wouldn't be the case - their cost benefit analysis would be weighted differently.

Things my mum said when I was little have started to mean more to me recently. Two little things of significance here:
"It says Best Before, not poisonous afterwards". Yep, I probably am being overcautious.
"When I was younger your grandmother told me I had to eat up my cabbage and to think of all the poor starving children in China. I gathered up the cabbage and put it in the post box for the children there but I felt a bit guilty because they might not like cabbage either". Nuff said.

What do you think?