At a time when a tropical heatwave is convincing even sceptics about the danger posed to our very existence from the damage we are doing to our planet, and as dire warnings about the cost of living are forcing many to choose between heating their homes or feeding their families this winter, it is staggering just how much perfectly edible food we simply throw away every year.
According to WRAP, the Waste and Resources Action Programme, UK households chuck out 4.5 million tonnes of food every year – that equates to £700 of groceries for the average family.
Of course, all of that food has used energy and resources to get to our fridges (food production is one of the biggest producers of carbon in the world), and getting rid of it, whether composting it or, just as likely, dumping it in landfill, will have a further impact on the environment.
It is estimated that ten per cent of all food waste is down to ‘date labelling confusion’; in other words, people throwing away food which is perfectly OK to eat, because the label on the packet doesn’t make it clear whether it’s safe to consume it after a certain date.
So three cheers for supermarket Waitrose, which announced last week that is it joining Tesco, Co-op and Marks & Spencer in abolishing ‘Best Before’ dates on nearly 500 fresh food products.
It is important here to understand the difference between a ‘Best Before’ date and a ‘Use By’ date. The former is about quality, whereas the latter is about safety. The argument goes that ‘Best Before’ dates encourage people to throw out perfectly fine food without using their judgement about whether it is OK to eat it.
So should we be ignoring all dates on food and simply using what many call the ‘sniff test’ to determine whether we should be consuming something which has been lurking in the back of our fridges for days or even weeks?
The answer to that is emphatically no: ‘Use By’ dates are there for safety reasons, to protect consumers from becoming ill through microbiological dangers, many of which do not give out a handy ‘off’ smell to help us detect them. There is a reason that it is a criminal offence to sell a foodstuff beyond its ‘Use By’ date, and you should certainly not consume such foodstuffs.
However, when it comes to ‘Best Before’ dates, you can safely use your own judgement. The Food and Drink Federation states that “food can be consumed after its ‘Best Before’ date, but it may no longer be at its best quality – and this is where smelling it to judge whether you want to eat it can be helpful.” Food which has gone beyond its ‘Best Before’ date may be a bit stale (or it may be perfectly fine), but either way it should be safe to eat.
The issue of food waste is a major scandal in the UK, and it may be that the cost of living crisis will be the thing which finally persuades us to tackle the issue. We have already largely seen the demise of the ‘Display Until’ and ‘Sell By’ dates, and we should applaud efforts to send the ‘Best Before’ date to the same oblivion.
However, if date label confusion accounts for just ten percent of food waste, that means there is still a very long way to go to tackle the overall problem, even once supermarkets have consigned the ‘Best Before’ date to history.
And while it’s easy to blame the big store chains for such waste, the reality is that the vast majority of it is down to us, the consumers. We don’t plan our meals, we buy far too much, and we are lazy when it comes to using up leftovers, preferring to simply chuck them in the bin.
So it’s time for all of us to do our bit, whether that is using portion calculators to ensure we buy the right amount in the first place, making better use of our freezers to keep and recycle surplus ingredients, learning how to store food properly so that it stays in tiptop condition, or being more creative when it comes to using leftovers.
Action by supermarkets is welcome, but can only go so far. For the sake of the planet, for the sake of the nation’s food security, and for the sake of our wallets, we all have to take action now.
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