You’ve no doubt been wondering what sort of food Brits throw away, as compared to (say) Poles.

Here’s the subtle analysis from W-Wa Jeziorki:

… we agreed as to why this should be. Polish bread – which is wonderfully tasty, nourishing and generally fabulous – has an ‘best by’ date measured in hours. Because taste is all-important, flour-enhancers are not used, and so Polish bread goes stale very, very quickly. In Britain however, Mother’s Pride, Sunblest and other white-sliced is so stuffed with chemicals that it will last a week and still be OK to smear Robertson’s jam over (35% fruit content).

The massive amounts of fruit and veg that Brits chuck out can be put down to the semi-effectiveness of the ‘five a day‘ campaign that the UK government has been promoting for years, getting the average citizen to increase his or her intake of fresh fruit and vegetables. Brits will buy (often out of guilt rather than conviction) large amounts of the stuff, but will then not be bothered to actually peel, squeeze, cut or otherwise prepare it and then eat it. (Am I right?) And so vegetables and fruit become number one and two food products that are wasted. Poles, I think on the whole have a healthier attitude to both money and food, so less gets binned (food accounts for a higher percentage of outgoings in Poland than in the UK).

But is this right?

… the fact that 39% of food gets wasted at the point of production (crops rotting in the fields, unpicked), and another 19% in transit to the point of purchase.

No. I think the point in the EU report is that of all food which ends up wasted, 39% gets wasted at the point of production etc. Not the same as saying that 39% of all food is wasted in this way.

Or not? Do we really have Soviet levels of wasted food effort?

In any case, as recycling efforts increase apace, it’s less clear what is 100% ‘waste’. Our council now take away food waste. Does it matter that much if some crops get ploughed back into the land, or some tomatoes here and there get recycled rather than eaten?