Let me ask you this. Would you throw a £5 note in the bin? I’m guessing your answer is going to be no. We wouldn’t dream of it, would we? And yet, many of us are throwing away perfectly edible food without thinking about it.

In fact, 70% of total food waste is generated in our homes. It’s estimated that households across the UK waste 4.5 million tonnes of food each year, equating to around £14 billion worth of food. For an average family with children, this works out at around £700 a year.

But there isn’t just a financial impact from our food waste habits, there’s an environmental one too. A UN press release stated: “…food that is produced but not eaten each year guzzles up a volume of water equivalent to the annual flow of Russia’s Volga River and is responsible for adding 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases to the planet’s atmosphere. Similarly, 1.4 billion hectares of land – 28 per cent of the world’s agricultural area – is used annually to produce food that is lost or wasted.”

But, feeding ourselves and our families really doesn’t have to cost the earth. Nor does looking after our food resources, planet and bank balance need to be hard work.