We Aussies like to think we're a "green" nation but still, three million tonnes of food are being wasted every year. That's 145kg per person and collectively, is enough to feed the entire nation for three weeks. Apparently the most wasted foods are fruit and veg, followed by meat, bread and dairy, and the main problem is that we buy or cook too much.
Once we throw out food, it rots in landfill and produces methane, an extremely harmful greenhouse gas. So we're all wasting good food and money, while also adversely affecting the environment. Here's how to be more economical with your nosh.
I like to add to this article that I was shocked to hear how much food is wasted from canteens and restaurants in Perth. When I worked at a bakery in my teens (in The Netherlands) all the stale old bread was gathered by a pig farmer. And I know that the left over meats from the pig factory went to the dog pound. Grown up on a farm were in some parts of the year we had an abundance of certain fruits and veggies we used to freeze them or make jams. Here I go to the markets once a week to buy my greens and we eat first what is not lasting for long. It's the way you shop, if you go only once a week, like me, than you need to know that you can keep the carrots for a while but not the lettuce! I have the idea that many people are thinking differently and need to learn again these basic skills.
And also the laws are not making it easier for people, as I remember asking the lettuce leaves discarded by the fresh market to take home for my chooks and they told me they couldn't do this in case there was something harmful in it and my chooks would die... But they could sell me the lettuce were they had just pulled the outer leaves from....???
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