The Dutch throw away one out of every five slices of bread they buy each day, which amounts to around ten million slices, according to new research.

And of all the pasta and rice bought, two out of five packets end up in the rubbish bin.

The figures come from the environmental information organisation Milieu Centraal, which analysed waste food in 2010 by ripping open rubbish bags and sorting through their contents.

Adjusting the waste food found with sales figures, the organisation came to the conclusion that 14% of all the food bought is thrown away unused.

Apart from bread, the most-wasted items are rice (38%), pasta (23%) and potatoes (23%). ‘This is mainly because people cannot estimate how much rice and pasta they need as it swells in the saucepan,’ a spokesman said.

Per year, Dutch households waste 800 million kilos of food, the report said.