What's wrong with wasting food?

When I was little, my mum would tell me not to waste food because of 'all the starving children in the world'.  I have to admit, I was baffled by this logic;  I wondered how the starving children benefitted from my dinner being in my stomach as opposed to the bin.

After some research, however, I can see that she was actually right about this (I can almost hear her saying, 'Mum knows best!')

Due to the fact that we operate in a global market, any food we buy is literally taken away from those who need it the most.  And if we continually buy more than we can eat, we are wasting food that could have been eaten by the world's poor. 

This is obviously a simplistic look at a complex situation, but the fact remains that a criminal amount of food is wasted in the west. 

Consider this:

- According to WRAP (the Waste and Resources Action Programme) nearly 8.3million tonnes of food are thrown away in the UK every year (the weight of 1,137 Eiffel Towers!)

- The average family loses over £420 per year as a result of wasted food

- According to the Love Food Hate Waste campaign (http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/) if food waste was eliminated it would be the equivalent of taking 1 in 4 cars off the road

- Finally (last statistic, I promise), according to the Food Ethics Council, eliminating food waste could lift almost a billion people out of hunger.

Food for thought, eh? 

So the next time someone asks you what's wrong with wasting food (or you even wonder yourself), just think of these reasons. 

Furthermore, cutting down on food waste can help us save a packet - and who can argue with that?