My carbon footprint: I’ve got the doggy bag blues

It’s high time to ditch the take-home snobbery, if only for the breakfast bonus, writes Kate Hughes

Food waste being turned to compost (Getty)

I dropped a proper social clanger over the weekend. I took the leftovers home on Sunday. We were in a country pub and, spotting the extra veg start to make its ominous way from table to kitchen to bin and, in all likelihood, on to landfill, I intervened. It was a criminal waste of a parsnip. Think of the possibilities. Free ones at that.

The other family we were with didn’t see it like that. I have never seen people look more like they wanted the floor to open up and swallow them all whole. They physically recoiled when I retrieved the metal boxes from the car – always go prepared – and started loading up the roasties. It isn’t the first time I’ve had that reaction, either.

Why is it that we can’t cope with owning the leftovers? Still? We’re missing a trick in more ways than one, that’s for sure, a trick plenty of other countries have been literally dining out on for years. The doggy bag isn’t just accepted in the US, for example, it’s a veritable institution – an absolute must given the scale of the average portion.