Food is cheap — we spend a smaller proportion of our income on it than at any other time in our history — so it’s no wonder we value it less and are easily seduced into buying too much of it all at once. But I don’t think many of us realise how much food we throw away, although the statistics are astonishing: 6.7m tonnes a year and rising. That’s a third of all the food we buy, and enough to fill Wembley Stadium to the brim eight times a year. And half of it could be eaten. It is estimated that if we stopped wasting food, we could reduce our carbon-dioxide-equivalent emissions by at least 15m tonnes a year — the same as taking one in every five cars off the road.

Food waste also costs hard-earned cash. UK households are binning about 15p in every food £1: something like £15,000-£24,000 in a lifetime, worth about £10 billion a year. About £2.3 billion of that is food chucked out in its original packaging, and that includes 5,500 chickens and 1.2m sausages a day. Add to that 4.4m whole apples and 5.1m potatoes every day, plus 328,000 tonnes of bread a year — figures that are both staggering and depressing. So, cooking with food that you might otherwise throw out makes sense in all sorts of ways — not only will you save money, but it can also make a substantial environmental difference.

My kind of thrifty cooking is not about making an impression. Most of the time it’s more likely to be throwing something together quickly for lunch, or for an evening in front of the telly or with a good book. It’s about being relaxed without compromising on quality and taste. This is not the place for purism or marvellous presentation. So that’s a relief. It’s also not about boring frugality, but rather making food that tastes really good — think of Italy, where leftover dishes such as ribollita and panzanella (bread salad) are some of the finest in the repertoire.

I have to say that much of what follows might seem like stating the obvious: that fresh herbs and spices are essential components of making food tasty; that one simple extra ingredient from a store cupboard or picked up on the way home can transform all the bits in the fridge that need to be used up — but bear with me. This kind of cooking is also, often, about inverting the normal scheme of things. Instead of being seduced by a new recipe and then rushing out to get the ingredients, you’ll be looking at what you have to hand and then deciding what kind of taste and texture you want and what kind of cooking you’re in the mood for: a soup, pie or stir-fry, a salad, stew or bake?

Using up food you might otherwise chuck out should leave you with more cash in your pocket, more space in your fridge and a welcome reconnection with your kitchen. This kind of cooking is not just about common sense: it is tasty and infinitely — almost smugly — rewarding.

Sunday Times 5/4/09

See also Love Food Hate Waste Campaign