Celebrity chefs are fuelling food waste with their insistence on exotic meals using fresh ingredients, a study claims.
From potatoes boulangere, pasta alla genovese and hand-dived scallops with pardina lentils, the world truly is your oyster if you believe the likes of Gordon Ramsay, Nigella Lawson and Rick Stein.
But, while ordinary families might be inspired by such recipes and go out to buy all manner of far-flung ingredients, they frequently get no further, leaving the food to go off.
In a world where both parents work and people arrive home at different times, the reality, according to the study, is that households often end up buying takeaways while throwing out expensive fresh food.
This contributes to a mountain of wasted food.
Sociologist Dr David Evans, of the University of Manchester, said families would be better off sticking to simple ingredients, eating the same meals several days a week, and using frozen vegetables.
He even suggested Delia Smith should be the model to follow with her cheat recommendations that include convenience foods such as tinned mince and frozen potatoes.
“The pressure to cook and eat in the ways celebrity chefs advise means a lot of food is already at risk of getting thrown out,” he said.
“A lot of so-called proper food is perishable and needs to be eaten within a pretty narrow time frame. Our erratic working hours and leisure schedules make it hard to keep on top of the food that we have in our fridges and cupboards.
“It is understandable that people might forget or be too tired to cook the food they have at home and so end up going for a takeaway and throwing out food they had already purchased.”
Evans, who studied cooking and eating habits in 19 households in Manchester for eight months, suggested a return to batch cooking, where dishes are created and frozen to be served as needed.
“The pressure to cook meals from scratch using fresh ingredients while enjoying a variety of dishes throughout the week can lead to waste,” he said.
The current levels of food waste should be viewed as the fall-out of households negotiating the complex demands of modern living.
“People with influence – like celebrity chefs – should acknowledge these issues and think about ways of making it socially acceptable or even desirable for us to eat the same meal several nights in a row or use frozen vegetables,” he said.
Delia Smith was criticised when she launched her book and TV series How to Cheat at Cooking because her recipes relied heavily on ready-made items, but Evans said this “is exactly the sort of thing that might help to reduce household food waste.
“It would be foolish to ignore nutritional considerations, but it is worth noting people will not reap the benefits of healthy food if they end up throwing it away.” – Daily Mail