Savvy students save cash!

It's that time of year when many people are moving away from home for the first time and learning how to fend for themselves. There's a lot to take in – a new place to live, new friends and new skills - but Love Food Hate Waste (LFHW) can help.

According to research* many students struggle to eat regularly. Almost half miss lunch at least once a week and one in ten never eat breakfast. Dinner is the most regular meal, but 17% of students still skip supper at least once a week.

But with top tips on how to save money simply by making the most of the food you buy, Love Food Hate Waste can help everyone feel confident and super savvy in the kitchen. It can also help you to make sure there's always something tasty in the fridge, without having to spend more. Savvy students can save cash by getting portions right and freezing leftovers for later.

For those that do cook, pasta dishes are the most common with 17% of students favouring this, but the traditional spaghetti bolognese comes out favourite.

Food waste is a huge problem in the UK. In general, an average family will throw away £50 worth of food each month. A large slice of this food waste comes from leftovers - the pasta left in the pan or the couscous that wasn't eaten. In general only half of us measure out the appropriate amount of food most or all of the time. Meaning that we often have rice (41%) and pasta (33%) left over.

To help us all make the most of this food and save money on the weekly shop Love Food Hate Waste has a range of easy hints, tips and recipes this autumn. There's loads of simple and easy ideas including ways to shop smarter, cook better, keep food fresher for longer and cook just the right amount, all at www.lovefoodhatewaste.com

Key facts from Love Food Hate Waste

· £12 billion worth of food is thrown out every year in UK homes. Householders are throwing out on average £480/year. This increases to £680/year for families with children – or £50 per month.

· We throw food out for two main reasons: 1) we let food go off, either completely untouched, or opened/started but not finished, costing £6.7 billion per year. 2) we cook or prepare too much, costing us £4.8 billion per year.

· Wasting food has a huge environmental impact – if we stopped throwing food away, it would save the equivalent of at least 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. That's like taking 1 in every 4 cars off our roads.

· Food waste is damaging to the environment because producing, storing and getting the food to our homes uses a lot of energy and resources – all of which are wasted when food gets binned. And most of this food reaches landfill sites where it emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.