What about just cleaning your plate, you ask? Tsk, tsk – that’s at odds with anti-obesity campaigns. Anyway, I think forcing kids to swallow every bite is unfair. After all, they’re not dishing out the portions, and some days they’ll simply feel less hungry – though that's scarily not the case with my two-year-old, who leaves nary a crumb unscoffed. Most of the mums I know are quite aware of the dangers of hoovering up your child’s leftovers. Good for the environment perhaps, but a crime against the waistline.

 

Sell-by dates are a problem. Like most Americans, I’m terrified of the diseases a slightly past-its-peak carrot might inflict. In the not-so-distant past you’d get creative and whip up a soup or stew using food that was about to go off. Alas few today have the skill – or energy – so perfectly good food gets binned. My husband is much better than I at noticing – or even ignoring – sell-by-dates and using up all the produce.

 

He usually cooks dinner for the two of us, and we’re careful with the leftovers. I try to eat them the next day for lunch or give them to the children for tea. A friend in the US has a supersized American fridge stocked with takeaway containers. She never wants to eat the same thing the next day, so the fridge slowly fills up until a major – and depressing – clearout of wasted food (and polystyrene boxes). I doubt many American-sized fridges are truly needed unless one runs a catering business. They just give you the illusion of plenty – or maybe they look so sad and empty you’re tempted to buy more to fill them up. Meanwhile they sap huge amounts of electricity – and don’t get me started on the new designs with built-in coffee machines.

 

Back to the Today programme, where Wrap's chief executive Jennie Price failed to mention wormeries, which keep food out of landfill, reducing methane. If the government goes through with the threats to end weekly rubbish collections, we’ll need much more personal and community composting to avoid smells and vermin.

 

I got two more wormeries from the council last week (£8 total, including delivery) though I really hanker after these cute Baby Beehive composters from wigglywigglers.co.uk (right). One of the main benefits of a wormery is that you start to notice how much food you’ve been throwing out. Instead of unwanted food disappearing into a black plastic bin liner and getting whisked away each week, you face the truth of your food rubbish every time you lift the lid to add more. 

 

I’ve really noticed a reduction in our household waste – and of course, an increase in the compost produced. Unfortunately we don’t have a garden, only a small patio with a few plants. We’re on the waiting list for a local allotment – perhaps a compost ‘donation’ would move us up the list? It’s not quite cash for honours but probably just as unethical.

 

On the menu for my lunch today? Leftover pasta with tomato and olive sauce and a bit of leftover fish lasagne. Satisfying – and embarrassingly self-satisfying?