Brits throw away one third of food they buy: Study

United Kingdom, a nation of Food lovers is the same nation that throws away one third of good food they buy, a new study revealed on Tuesday. The reasons behind the wastage given by people are over buying, wrong storage temperatures and fussy children.

A new ground-breaking report from the Government's Waste And Resources Action Programme, known as WRAP, published in May 2008, reveals that more than half the good food thrown out, worth £6bn a year, is bought and simply left unused or untouched.

According to the report, British consumers each day throw away 1.6 million bananas, 1.3 million unopened yoghurt pots, 4.4 million apples, 550,000 chickens, 300,000 packs of crisps, 660,000 eggs and 440,000 ready meals which are untouched food products.

Environment Minister, Joan Ruddock said, "These findings are staggering in their own right, but at a time when global food shortages are in the headlines this kind of wastefulness becomes even more shocking."

Adding further she said, "And there are climate change costs to all of us of growing, processing, packaging, transporting and refrigerating food that only ends up in the bin."

He also said, "I can't help thinking that when some people in the world are just too poor to buy any food and they live on food aid then how extraordinary that we could be so profligate."

The study showed that much of the food which was tossed away by people was past its sell-by date, after being left too long in the fridge, but some £1bn worth of thrown away food products were still "in date".

The people tend to throw away cooked food, rather than raw ingredients. The uncooked most commonly discarded food items were fresh fruit and vegetables, followed by bread and cakes.

According to Wrap's chief executive, Jenny Price, the "source of problem" is that people always want to have an option. They also want to "make sure that there's plenty in the fridge" whenever possible. She also added that people tend not to think about the food that they are throwing away.

Liz Goodwin, Wrap boss said, "Food waste has a significant environmental impact. This research confirms that it is an issue for us all, whether as consumers, retailers, local or central government."

The report called "The Food We Waste" says that if we quit throwing away good food, nearly as much as 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide will be stopped from being emitted per year, which is same as taking 1 in 5 cars off UK roads.

A campaingn named as "Love Food Hate Waste" has been set up by the organisation with the aim to encourage families, along with children to think more judiciously about how much food they should buy and how to store it wisely.

When the world today is facing the crisis of climate change and food price is on the rise if only we eat our leftovers, we would be doing our bit to save the world.