South Africans are the continent's biggest food wasters

Healthy eating can reduce the amount of food we waste, says the head of the World Research Institute's food loss and waste programme, Liz Goodwin.

"There is an awful lot of connectivity with the messages of health and wastage, and we have found that a healthy diet is a more sustainable diet automatically."

If we ate more fresh produce, less of it would be thrown away due to spoilage.

Goodwin, who is based in the UK, said half the food that Brits bought ended up in the bin.

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In South Africa, while our wastage is lower, an estimated 12 million people (24.5% of the population) go to bed hungry each day and we are the biggest wasters of food on the continent. Household food waste is estimated at R22-billion per year. The most wasted products are bread, rice and porridge.

In the UK, bakery products and fresh produce are wasted. "As the middle class grows, you waste more food. It is awful," Goodwin said.

The answer is to shop better and value what we eat. "This worldwide problem really starts with a simple act, looking in your fridge and knowing what you need to buy. Plan a little bit, around how many people you have to cook for and how many meals you have to buy food for, rather than thinking something looks good and I'll use it in the week."

She said the EU Court of Auditors released a report in January which found that about 88 million tons of food are lost or wasted in the EU each year. "Perhaps even more concerning is that with no further action, that figure is expected to rise to 126 million tons by 2020."

Goodwin said that for relatively affluent people, the cost of food is a smaller percentage of their budget, so they feel they can afford to waste.

Also, families did not eat together and while people were educated about nutrition, they might not know how to cook.

"The heart of it is, we don't value food, as perhaps someone like my mother, who lived through World War 2 does," Goodwin said.

"They didn't have bananas or butter every day, so when you had it, you made sure you took care of it. People don't realise the resources that go into producing a piece of meat, the grain and animal processing. It is about impact," she said.

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6 WAYS TO CURB FOOD WASTAGE

1) Plan meals in advance.

2) Write a shopping list.

3) Understand date labels, such as the difference between "sell by" and "use by".

4) Expand your skills in cooking, portion sizes and using up leftovers.

5) Retailers and brands must improve pack sizes and flexibility. This can mean packaging single portions, and packs that can be split for use on more than one occasion.

6) We need to think about what and how we teach our children, so the next generation understands the value of food and knows how to cook and use it.

WHO HELPS?

• Local company FoodForward SA collects edible surplus food from manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers. It redistributes this food to verified non-profit organisations that collectively feed thousands of hungry people daily.

• Health Not Hungry is part of the UN World Food Programme which champions eating local, sustainable, varied produce for health and sustainable farming.