Today, October 16 is World Food Day

In Australia, when it comes to food we are so fortunate.  There is an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables, the range of foods is enormous, the quality is high, food handling standards are strict, and the influence of many cultures means there is always something interesting and tasty to try.  So on World Food Day, you would probably expect a post about the 795 million people in the world who do not have enough to eat, and what we could do to help.  Maybe you would expect a post about how, in the future, things in Australia might be very different; that population growth and climate change will stretch our resources to the limit. And it is true that at the current rate of growth, the world’s population will exceed nine billion by 2050.  The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that food production will need to increase by 70 per cent to cover this. The situation is even worse in Australia because we are subject to extreme weather conditions. The Climate Council estimates that by 2061 Australia’s domestic demand for food could be 90 per cent above the levels they were in 2000 (Climate Council figures released as of Oct 2015).   But no… these are not the issues I am choosing to post about on this World Food Day.  Instead, something much closer and very real to our daily lives…. Food Wastage!

According to Helping only one in seven Australians think they waste too much food. But do you know what?  Food wastage is the biggest pollution issue on the planet.  Firstly, the production, packaging and transportation of food generates 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases each year.  Wasted food that ends up in landfill also produces greenhouse gases. In fact the methane gas produced when food rots is 25% more potent than the carbon pollution coming from cars.  Cutting food waste by 15% would have the same impact on CO2 emissions as taking 167,000 cars off the road.

Foodwise lists some interesting and shocking facts about food waste in Australia

• Australians discard up to 20% of the food they purchase. That equates to 1 out of every 5 bags of groceries we buy.
• Up to 40% of the average household garbage bin is food.
• For the average Australian household $1,036 of food is thrown away each year. That amount of money could have been spent on feeding the average household for over a month or paying for 6 months of electricity (for an average household).
• Aussies waste  4 Million tonnes of food a year.  An average of 345kg per household – which is the same weight as 3 average sized fridges!
• why is food wasted? We cook too much, dont know how to use left overs, buy take away instead of using what is at home, and maybe, we buy too much in the first place.
• the hidden impact of all that food being thrown out is also the waste of water, fuel and resources it took to get the food from the paddock to the plate.
• an estimated 20-40% of vegetables are rejected before they even reach the shops because they dont match the consumers’ and supermarkets’ high cosmetic standards

Image via feedbackglobal.org

So what can we do?  Helping offer 6 practical tips to help reduce food wastage.  Love food, hate waste have lots of information and resources, including recipes on their web site. Foodwise also have a recipe section on their website.  Sarah (I-Quit-Sugar) Wilson has just published a recipe book, ‘Simplicious’, in which all 306 recipes are to do with re-purposed food. We can also ask our elders, who have come from a ‘no-waste’ era, for their recipes and tips.  Maybe you have a favourite recipe that uses left overs?  Please share it.

Fried Rice and Sweet Potato Cottage pie are my favourite ways of cleaning up the veggies, cooked and uncooked, I find in the fridge at the end of the week.  Both dishes can also incorporate any left over cooked meats.  What’s your favourite dish that uses up leftovers?

Making compost, worm farms or keeping chooks are great eco-friendly ways to ‘recycle’ food scraps.  Space to make compost or run chooks are not things everyone can do but companies like Bokashi make compost bins designed for the kitchen and a worm farm can happily survive in a small outdoor space, even if you have no garden. Friends with gardens will gladly receive the worm ‘oil’ while you marvel at the miraculous way the worms transform your food rubbish.

Happy World Food Day, friends.