A drop of the wet stuff, and food wastage

We've been quite spoiled over the summer, weather-wise.  It's been lovely - dry, sunny and warm.  This weekend we've been back to more traditional British weather - it's rained, a lot.  There was a rumble of thunder and accompanying flash of lightning on Sunday then an absolute downpour of torrential rain.  It got so dark we had to put the lights on, in the middle of the day.  However, it seems we got away lightly because only a few miles away on the mainland, Hayling Island apparently had a tornado!

We managed to nip down to the garden to pick a few leaves from our various cabbages and we enjoyed them, lightly steamed, with our roast dinner last night.  

The quilt top is finally in one piece, all seams neatly hemmed by hand, and all the tacking is out (and yes, I do save the long tacking threads to re-use).  It was a little tricky using the machine to top-stitching the last few triangles as the bulk of the quilt was difficult to manouvere through the small 'throat' aperture of my machine.  The trick was to take it slowly, ensuring the bulk was rolled tightly to feed through the gap.  I'm pleased with how it looks.  

Just not enough room!

In the news today, Tesco, one of the biggest supermarket chains in the UK, reported that in the first 6 months of this year, it generated about 30,000 tonnes of food waste.  I guess other supermarkets generate huge amounts, too.  I was reading through some of the comments on this online report, and found myself nodding my head in agreement with many remarks made.  No 'home economics' taught in schools anymore, so youngsters aren't learning how to cook from scratch, work to a budget etc etc; supermarkets are enticing us to buy more than we need with BOGOF offers, and putting a set amount in sealed plastic bags rather than letting customers buy what they need; we shop less often than we used to - our parents and certainly grandparents shopped daily for food - it was fresh, cooked and eaten on that day; nowadays people are more inclined to throw food out rather than produce a meal from left-overs.  The list goes on.  It occurred to me that these are all issues that aiming for a simple life tries to address, and it's certainly a topic of conversation that N and I have on a regular basis.

With foodbanks becoming fixtures in many towns (and that in itself is a very sad indictment on the impact of the economy on those who struggle to makes ends meet), the amount of food that is simply wasted is shocking.  Tesco have had the decency to publish their figures (hopefully others will do their own stock-take) and will hopefully take steps to attempt to cut down the wastage that they can control, but as consumers we also have responsibilities.  We should not allow ourselves to be seduced into those all-too tempting offers, only to throw half the food away because we haven't used it in date - we know of people who clean their fridges out every week, throwing away any foodstuffs that are left, before they restock with fresh food for the coming week.  It goes to waste - it is all thrown away.  Planning meals would ensure we only buy the food we need.  Learning how to make meals from left-overs - soups made from the last few veggies, for example.  

I'm sure those people who regularly throw food away wouldn't throw actual cash - money - into the waste bin quite so recklessly.  

It's a problem, and a very serious problem, that needs to be tackled on many fronts.  Blaming the supermarkets alone is not the answer.  Yes, they most certainly have a big part to play and pressure should be brought on them to address their wastage, but all of us consumers need to think twice before we over-buy perishable food that we then can't be bothered to use up.  Adopting a thrifty, responsible attitude towards our food shopping and subsequent usage would be a good step forward.

Just my thoughts on this.