Food waste
Food waste food substance, processed, raw or cooked, which is discarded, or intended or required to be discarded. Food wastes are the organic residues generated by the handling, storage, sale, preparation, cooking, and serving of foods. As of 2011, 1.3 billion tons of food, about one third of the global food production, are lost or wasted annually.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization:
- Industrialized and developing countries disposes roughly the same quantities of food — respectively 670 and 630 million tonnes.
- Consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food (222 million tonnes) as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tonnes).
- Fruits and vegetables, plus roots and tubers have the highest rate of wastage.
[edit] Environmental Impact
Food wastes in landfill quickly rots and becomes a significant source of methane — a potent greenhouse gas with 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.
[edit] Tips in reducing food waste
1. Write a list! Menu plan meals for a week. Check the ingredients in the fridge and cupboards, write a shopping list for just the extras needed.
2. Stick to the list! Bring and stick to the list when in the store. Don't be tempted by offers and don't shop when hungry.
3. Keep a healthy fridge. Check that the seals on the fridge are good and monitor its temperature. Food needs to be stored between 1 and 5 degrees Celsius for maximum freshness and longevity.
4. Don't throw it away! Turn very ripe fruits into smoothies or fruit pies. Vegetables that are starting to wilt can be made into soup.
5. Use up your leftovers. Instead of scraping leftovers into the bin, why not use them for tomorrow's ingredients? A bit of tuna could be added to pasta and made into a pasta bake. A tablespoon of cooked vegetables can be the base for a crock pot meal.
6. Rotate. When buying new food from the store, bring all the older items in cupboards and fridge to the front. Put the new food towards the back and you run less risk of finding something moldy at the back of the food stores.
7. Serve small amounts. Serve small amounts of food with the understanding that everybody can come back for more once they've cleared their plate. This is especially helpful for children, who rarely estimate how much they can eat at once. Any leftovers can be cooled, stored in the fridge and used another day.
8. Buy what is needed. Buy loose fruits and vegetables instead of prepacked. Choose meats and cheese from a deli.
9. Freeze! If deciding to eat a small amount of bread, then freeze it and take out a few slices a couple of hours before using them. Likewise, batch cook foods in order to have meals ready for those evenings when we are tired to cook.
10. Turn waste food into garden food. Some food waste is unavoidable, set up a compost bin for fruit and vegetable peelings. In a few months this will end up with rich, valuable compost for plants. For cooked food waste, then a kitchen composter (bokashi bin) will do the trick. Just feed it with your scraps (you can even put fish and meat in it), sprinkle over a layer of special microbes and leave to ferment. The resulting product can be used on houseplants and in the garden.
Tip source: The Daily Green
