The weight of food waste Part of what is magical about restaurants is that feeling that you are stepping into a realm where the normal rules don't apply. The freedom to waste food is part of this, I'm afraid. 'People park their principles outside when they go to a restaurant,' says Tom Tanner of the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA), which is running the Too Good to Waste campaign. Tanner compares the lack of conscience about waste in restaurants to attitudes to animal welfare. Consumers who carefully buy free-range chickens in the supermarket will accept any old chicken when dining out. It's as if you become a different person for the night. There's also the embarrassment factor when it comes to asking to take leftovers home. Doggy bags have a slight shame attached to them in Britain (not the case in America, where the portion sizes are so huge they are a necessity). In a survey by the SRA a quarter of respondents said they were too embarrassed to ask for a doggy bag. Another quarter thought restaurants weren't allowed to give them. Tom Tanner argues that this shame is misplaced: 'As a cook you would be far more disgusted and upset' to see the food wasted. What's needed is a change in social mores, like the changing attitude to tap water in restaurants. Only five years ago it was seen as skinflint-ish to order anything other than mineral water; now it is entirely acceptable. The same may yet happen with restaurant food waste. But we shouldn't be too po-faced about this. It wouldn't be possible to eliminate food waste altogether from restaurants without entirely changing the nature of the enterprise. These are not places we go to be lectured, but to escape for an hour or two in surroundings freer and shinier than home. In the end the best defence against restaurant waste may not be doggy bags and moralising but excellent cooking (and smaller portions). The perfect restaurant meal is the one so exquisite you cannot bear to leave so much as a crumb.