So the people have been wasting food and can save 420 pounds a year by not throwing it away?
But the government has wasted billions upon billions of pounds - some of it in helping to create this problem.
Will they be cutting back on anything? MPs expense claims, say? Spurious 'initiatives' that cost millions and do not work?
I think not. Time to throw out the waste from the House of Commons. Gordon first.

GREAT! Now all you multiculties can starve yourselves to abject weakness while waiting to be beheaded, just to prevent anyone having the strength to resist at the last moment. Your slow lingering suicide is disgusting.

You can't be serious,Quite frankly,you guys are scaring me to death You want to tell me how much I can buy? You can't control your own lives but you want to control mine.
You talk about the famine in other parts of the world but how about all of the rotting food on docks and the food and goods meant for the starving going to the war lords and others and never getting to the people that need it. When the G8,UN and all of the other goody-goody Orgs get their acts together and can get the food to the people that need it then come talk to me,otherwise buzz off.

Blimey, this government is getting more Kafkaesque by the day. Has anyone seen the amount of food that gets wasted and thrown away in westminster. It's probably more than enough to feed everyone living rough on the streets of London.

These people are no longer on the same planet as the rest of us.

Gordon gandstanding again. He is off to the G8 junket with an empty purse. Cannot afford any more donations to the poor countries of the world. Has to say something, but what? He could talk about the massive increase in emissions the conference will create with its security arrangements. Destroyers oatrolling the seas around Japan; warplanes constantly flying overhead; day and night army and police vehicle patrols. Then there is all the aircraft to fly the leaders and hundreds of delegates and media to and from the venue, and the sushi to feed them. Gordon and sushi? That will go in the bin.

all this wasted food - has it calculated by examining the contents of 100 dustbins and extrapolating a gross figure to include fishheads,teabags, coffee grounds,potato peelings etc.ie a government figure or has it some basis, no matter how tenuous, with reality?

As per usual, it's the government's fault and no one elses. Jumping on the bandwagon and blaming Gordon Brown for all of the world's ills, does not solve any problems, and isn't a sufficient excuse to carry on wasting as much food as we do, or driving our 4x4's to the supermarket.

How about a soundbite from Prescott on this? That's a SOUNDbite!

Remember the exception he took to those wasted eggs, though.

See how much food you throw away when your total income is £135pw.Also do the governments of Europe still pay farmers to set aside land,i.e.not to grow crops on it?

The POOR in this country ,who are now poorer than they were 11 years ago do not have any money to waste. Could we have comments please on food wastage from any caterers that cater at functions at no's 10 and 11 Downing Street?

@ trevo - "And the new caring compassionate Conservative line on this would be?"

Hopefully not to penalise the poor in Britain by telling supermarkets not to offer three-for-two bargains.

Typical Brown - it's always the poorest who pay for his stupid ideas.

At least they extended drinking hours so the "needy" amongst us could binge away their disposable incomes; not to mention all those "recycled" kebabs you see in the gutters.

I'm guessing Mr Brown the Beadle skipped that page of Oliver Twist?

Once again in total agreement with Flipped and Mark Underwood, yet another jibe aimed at the poorest, who are forever being made to feel like scapegoats for all the ills of society.
If you want to stop waste, then try imposing fines on the supermarkets for the amount of rotting food thrown away, restaurants who offer "eat as much as you can" deals, thus encouraging gluttony and waste. What about all of the 2 for 1 deals that encourage waste? TV celebrity cooking shows, they certainly have no qualms about wasting food.
So Gordon Brown, take this bit of advice, and shove it where the sun doesn't shine!
Put your own house in order, such as the £23000 a year MPs allowance for food and expenses, over and above their salary. Me and my missus spend less than £5000 a year, and that includes wine and beer!

Kenny wrote;

"As per usual, it's the government's fault and no one elses. Jumping on the bandwagon and blaming Gordon Brown for all of the world's ills, does not solve any problems, and isn't a sufficient excuse to carry on wasting as much food as we do, or driving our 4x4's to the supermarket."

Why the reference to 4x4's? Are we back on the saving the planet thing? As well as troughing on his banquets whilst telling the rest of us to cut back, has anyone questioned how much of the dreaded Co2 Gordon's little junket produced? Not very 'enviromentally friendly' jetting off to Japan, is it?

Supermarkets do throw a lot of food away. They would be advised to consider doing something useful with it, donating some to local old peoples homes or homeless for example.

As for our wonderful leaders they should set an example and stop stuffing themselves. Perhaps this is why they are so full if S****.

Ten ways to stop Britain wasting food!

1. Having pets wastes food. Pets produce nothing, they only consume. Eat your cat today and help to end world poverty! Keep a small mouse as a pet instead.

2. We should shoot all the squirrels in parks and only let goats graze in the trees.

3. Women should set an example by only dating short men. Anyone over six foot two should be prohibited from placing a personal ad with a dating agency. The Pirelli calendar should only feature size zero models.

4. Every attic in the country should be converted into a greenhouse to grow tomatoes and every basement and bath into a fish farm.

5. All school playing fields should be converted into farms and schoolchildren taught how to farm.

6. Detergent powder makes an excellent alternative to rice, for throwing confetti and keeps streets and churches nice and clean! In addition, as an added bonus, the cheaper brands have a sterilising effect.

7. Potatoes use less water and land per kilogram yield than any other crop grown in Britain. We should all eat chips everyday and encourage our children too!

8. Just one Robbie Coltrane could feed an entire village in sub-Sahara Africa for a whole year!

9. Cotton is a crop grown on land that could be used to grow food. Cotton uses much water that could be used to irrigate land to grow more food. People who don’t wear protective patches on their elbows, knees and shoulders and don't habitually carry shotguns should be shunned because they are wasting cotton, needlessly!

10. We should all drink real ale. Alcoholic beverages, except real ale, are very inefficient uses of precious foodstuffs!

OK we should waste less but which government supports the EU fishing policy which dictates if stupid undersized fish have the temerityto be caught, then they have to be thrown back into the sea, dead, for the gulls to eat? Nu Labour utterances just get worse.

One of the biggest reasons we now have rocketing food prices and some shortages Kenny, is that our myopic government amongst others are pursuing a ludicrous policy of producing bio-fuels in order to save a planet that is doing very nicely anyway.

I don't believe a single word uttered by the global warming fanatics. What I do believe is that world leaders are pursuing policies in a vain attempt to overcome the power of the planet that will result in poverty and starvation for millions. It isn't global warming that will cause this, it's vanity politics, and in the case of Gormless Gordon, an insatiable desire to relieve the UK population of as much money as possible through 'green' taxation to plug his 7.5bn black hole.

I remember just after the war (WWII that is) when we recycled food before anyone knew what recycling was. Every house had what was called a "pigs bin". It was filled with food left overs and collected one a week where it went to the local farmers who fed their pigs on it after it had been boiled up. Now we can't do that because of some health & Safety Czar ruling that it unhygienic. Also, shops and restaurants have been stopped giving their surplus away to the homeless and needy by the same PC group for the same reasons. When is common sense going to make a comeback in the UK?

Someone I know works for a well known supermarket chain and the food he sees thrown away every day is in better condition then the food in my fridge, it has simply passed its sell by date.
The government allows the sale of tobacco which research has proved can be damaging to health, and can even cause death. I presume that health and safety dont intervene with this because of the government health warning on the packet which removes any responsibility the vendors have for the consequences of the use of this product.
If this is the case, why cant supermarket chains do something similar with produce past its sell by date.
A simple message telling consumers that once past its sell by date the product may damage health,or words to that effect, should be sufficient, and would end this obscene practice of throwing away perfectly edible and nourishing food.
Its too simple.