Eat up or I'll put it in an envelope and send it to Ethiopia !

Growing up a number of decades ago the young Man in a Shed would often be berated for not clearing his plate, especially by his grandmother ! ( Let remind ourselves both my mother and grandmother could remember food rationing ).

And during the great famine in Ethiopia that shocked so many of us with its TV reporting the contrast between the starving children with their distended bellies and my not finishing of the mashed potato was made often enough. The threat to take what was left over and post it to Ethiopia - to add to the guilt - was made on a number of occasions.

I can't say I enjoyed being lectured like this. In your head you knew it was terrible to waste food whilst other starved ( though of course it would be better to have less and let them have more ). But the spirit of youthful rebellion hated this line of argument from adults.

Well it appears Gordon Brown thinks the same approach with the rest of us will work ! He's telling everyone to waste less food, to help solve the world food crisis.

Of course the amount of food we waste is immoral. But I can't help thinking people are going to hate being lectured by Gordon on the subject.

Personally, since our income dropped with the start of my business venture we've got far better at using the food we buy. I would say we very rarely have to throw things out. Our real problem is to change our menu to drop the cost of the weekly shop ! Given the fact that inflation is vastly higher than the lie the government tries to tell us.