Here’s a little food for thought (pun intended!) about food waste. When we toss out food, we’re not just chucking the leftovers – we’re also tossing away all the energy, water, fertilizer, hours of labour and investment in equipment used to process, package and transport that food. Unnecessary greenhouse gases are
generated in the process.

Did you know that globally, one-third of all the food produced is wasted! If food waste were a country, it would rank as the third biggest greenhouse gas emitter. Wasting food is actually worse for the environment than all the greenhouse gases emitted from flying? It’s a bit mind-boggling, right?

In Australia, we throw away a whopping 7.6 million tonnes of food every year? That’s enough to fill up the MCG nine times over! This means that about 1 in every 5 grocery bags we bring home actually ends up in the bin, which means roughly 312kg of food per person per year is simply discarded. It is an absurd waste of Earth’s resources and is costs households $2,000 – $2,500 each year.

Fossil fuels are used to power equipment, make fertilizers and packaging plastics. It seems unconnected but, if we cut down on food waste we conserve this valuable resource.

Here’s a challenge:

• Clean out the refrigerator. Then, every two or three days, for a week, note down all the food that you throw away. Apple cores and vegetable peels, unfinished sandwiches from lunchboxes, left over casserole, take away Chinese food, bruised tomatoe.
  • Keep a record of how much you threw away – half a sandwich, one serve of casserle, one cup of rice, why you threw it away -unwanted, gone mouldy, damaged, and where you threw it – bin, compost down the drain, to your pets.
• At the end of the week, check the items in the pantry, fridge and freezer that need using up, especially short life ingredients like salads and leafy greens. Think about meals you’d like to cook for the next week, that use these items and ingredients you already have.
  • Make a shopping list for the ingredients you don’t have based on your menu plan. Stick to your shopping list and try to resist impulse buys!
• Conserve and preserve your ingredients: check how many the recipe caters for – don’t cook unnecessary extra portions. Can you make pesto from those unused herbs, jam from that uneaten fruit or freeze the juice from that half lemon left over from dinner last night?
• Make sure you store your fresh ingredients and left overs properly to avoid spoilage. Designate a shelf or area near the top or front of your pantry, fridge and freezer for yorur oldest items so they are visible and easy to access. This will remind you to use them first.

Now, have another look at how much food you are wasting. You’re addressing resource depletion without even leaving home.