How much food do you throw away every week?

I've been reading a story about this on the herald, and it's quoting a report from the New Zealand food waste audit.

The average family, apparently, throws away almost 80kgs of uneaten food a year and across that country that equates to about $827 million.

Apparently, we throw away about 20 million loaves of bread every year.

An action group says we should freeze half the loaf and keep the other half fresh, especially in Auckland where the humidity is high.

But the most expensive food that we're likely to turf in the bin?

Chicken.

We're paranoid about chicken and we worry that we've kept it too long, and we get confused about whether we can re-heat it, so out it goes.

Here's a few more food items that we tend to chuck out.

Bananas - yes, guilty, or they sit in the fruit bowl waiting for me to make a banana cake that I never quite around to.

Potatoes.

Oranges.

Carrots.

Eggs - really? I don't tend to throw out eggs.

Broccoli and avocados.

Quite apart from the pressure all that waste puts on the purse, it's obviously not great for the environment either, because when you throw away all that energy, it goes nowhere. It goes in the bin. Lost forever.

The action group - Love food, hate waste - is a volunteer group and it says it's working to help families save money and impact less on the environment. Apparently 55 councils around the country have picked up on this.

Auckland council, for example, is looking at how we can recycle food waste. Aucklanders would have to separate food waste from everything else.

But here is perhaps the best piece of advice. The Love Food, Hate Waste" action group says the best way to avoid wasting food?

Slow down when you shop and make a list.

It's not rocket science, is it? And in the long run, you'll save a bit of money along the way.