Over one third of all food produced globally is wasted, according to the Food Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). 1.3 billion tons of food per year.
However, society continues to compulsively buy food it doesn’t need. This wasted food could be used for other purposes, such as feeding the 820 millions of undernourished individuals in the world.
Food waste is not only about the excessive products we buy and then discard, but also about how we cook, use and eat those products we actually consume.
After seeing the impact our consumer choices had on our planet, I set myself a challenge: during one week, I would try to achieve minimal food waste and also that related to wrappings and individual packaging.
The goal was to see to what extent me and my 4 member household could reduce our waste impact. So I created a 7 day plan to reach this goal and wrote all the process down.
·
·
·
Here's what happened.
·
·
·
MONDAY, 20 APRIL
As a first step towards reducing my food waste, I start making my own oat milk. By using just one cup of oats I manage to get 1,5L of milk.
For breakfast, I make porridge with the residue from the milk I’ve just made.
For lunch I thaw some pork from the freezer and make a barbecue with eggplant, carrots and zucchini. I keep the peels from the vegetables and put them in a glass jar, which I later feed to my chickens.
Dinner consists on leftover eggplant from the barbecue with canned sardines and a salad with organic lettuce from my garden. I put the lettuce root and dry leaves in a jar that I label as “food for the chickens”.
My first day of minimal food waste has been successful and very easy to manage. I’ve used up residual oats, saved a brick of milk and fed my chickens with real food.
TUESDAY, 21 APRIL:
I make porridge with the residuals from the oat milk for breakfast and also have a latte with the oat milk I made yesterday.
In the morning I cook up some vegetable stock with old veggies that were about to turn bad. I used broccoli stems, sprouted potatoes, carrots, carrot leaves, turnips, chicken bones and pork meat. With some of the cooked vegetable leftovers I feed the chickens. I think I’ll make croquettes with the remaining meat, as me and my family have a love affair with them. Yum.
For lunch I have organic peas with mint from the garden, stems and all, and yes, the famous croquettes.
Dinner consists on a soup with veggies from the stock and an omelette made from my chickens’ eggs. Simple but delicious.
Now I’m laying on the couch thinking about how well has today gone, but I think I’m going to stand up and soak some cashews to make milk tomorrow.
WEDNESDAY, 22 APRIL:
I have the last batch of porridge with the residuals from the oat milk for breakfast.
After that, I brew cashew milk with the nuts I soaked overnight and, with the residuals I get, blended some cashew “cream cheese” frosting that I will store in the freezer for future usage. This frosting is creamy, not too sweet and absolutely delicious on top of cakes. Thinking of you, red velvet cakes.
In the morning I receive some plants for the orchard that I had bought online and plant them. They are tomatoes and lettuces. By planting my own vegetables, I make sure I reduce my trips to the store and consume both locally and seasonally.
For lunch, I have homemade tacos which I fill with lettuce from the garden, organic tomatoes, ground beef, guacamole and pickled onions. For the guacamole I used fresh coriander leaves and stems and some overripe avocados I had in the fridge. Using the stems is very important here, as they contain the highest concentration of flavor. For the pickled onions I follow Jasmin and David’s instructions and pickle them with water, vinegar and salt. I have discovered my new thing: pickling veggies. It reminds me of the favors of my favorite city: Copenhagen.
In the afternoon I make a gluten free carrot cake with some old carrots I have in the fridge and cover it with the cashew frosting I made in the morning.
For dinner I have the last batch of the soup I made on Tuesday and then a veggie burger with some vegetables on the side. Once again, the scraps and peels from the veggies are put in a jar to feed the chickens. They can’t complain, as they are receiving more fresh food than ever.
At night, I soak some beans to cook them faster on the next day.
Wednesday insight on my food waste adventure: all well, although I have spent a rather high amount of time in the kitchen.
THURSDAY 23 APRIL:
On Sant Jordi Day, a very special date in Catalonia, I wake up to a pink rose on my bedroom table. It is a tradition that on this day fathers and boyfriends give a rose to the ladies and women give a book to the males in their family and friend circle.
I feel happy, so I make a batch of my famous crunchy granola using some old walnuts I have in my pantry, as well as some other ingredients such as buckwheat groats, grated coconut and cinnamon. I have it for breakfast with some cashew milk and an organic pear.
In the morning, I cook the soaked beans. These take a while to cook, so I always make sure I do this some hours before eating them.
Also, once a week my family and I receive a box full of organic fruits and vegetables which are sustainably wrapped and are grown just a few miles away from our home. This box contains fresh seasonal ingredients, and it is a great way to eat fresh produce in a sustainable way.
For lunch, I make cod (which I defrost) with the recently cooked beans and a “garlicky” tomato sauce (from canned tomatoes).
In the afternoon I go to the kitchen and I see a big mess, so I decide to organize my pantry in categories, select those goods that are close to their expiry date or have been hanging there for a while and write them down in a list to prioritize their consumption.
For dinner, I make another family favorite: pizzas from scratch, starting from the kneading of the dough. I use the remaining canned tomatoes from lunch for the tomato sauce and some cheese that is close to its expiry date to top the pizzas. It is a tradition that we make our pizzas super thin, so that when you bite into them they are crunchy on the base and soft and cheesy on the top. Mouth-watering.
At night, as I have some overripe bananas, I cut them in halves and put them in the freezer to use for future smoothies.
FRIDAY, 24 APRIL 2020:
I go to the orchard to collect calçots with my cousins in the morning, which are a sort of spring onion which is very typical of the zone where I live.
For breakfast I blend up a maca cinnamon smoothie with some bananas I freezed, nuts, seeds and the cashew milk.
For lunch me and my family meet with my cousins, aunt and uncle and have the freshly collected calçots, which we cook in the barbecue. It is always nice to spend some family time around good food.
In the afternoon, I make chocolate chip muffins with eggs from my chickens, oat flour and fair trade cocoa powder. As a frosting, I use some old chocolate I had in my pantry, which I melt and poured on top of the muffins.
Finally, dinner consists on one of my favorite dishes: smørrebrød (a traditional Danish open-face sandwich). I make it with leftover canned sardines, eggplant and pickled onions, which I place on rye bread. The best part of smørrebrød is that it can be prepared with anything you have in your fridge, so it’s a perfect “no food waste” meal.
At night, I make my own yogurt using cow milk and the last pot of the store-bought yogurts I have. I love making yogurt, as you get 7 pots from only 1 container.
Food waste progress: I am very grateful to have an orchard and chickens, as therefore I can use my own products to cook and am proud of my locally grown produce.
SATURDAY, 25 APRIL:
For breakfast I have a yogurt with the homemade granola and a pear.
I make some more cashew milk, and used the residues again to make cashew frosting.
Later on, I go downstairs to do some gardening with my family. We trim some trees and bushes and stack up the cut leaves in a pile to form compost.
For lunch we have spaghetti al burro e salvia, one of the easiest yet most delicious pastas ever, in my humble opinion. For the sauce, I use sage from our terrace (which I received a few days before from my online purchase of plants), butter and parmesan cheese (even the rind, which, pro tip, I use to infuse and boost the flavour of the sauce).
In the afternoon, I start growing some watercress and broccoli sprouts using a machine that I already had. However, growing sprouts at home is the easiest thing ever, and no equipment is needed. A simple glass jar will do the job just fine.
I also notice I have some stale bread, so I grind it up to make breadcrumbs.
For dinner, I have fried chicken with those breadcrumbs and an organic kale salad. I store the kale stems to use them on another occasion. These are perfect for making pesto sauce.
SUNDAY, 26 APRIL:
In the morning, I make pancakes for breakfast. I use oats, thawed bananas from the freezer and some seeds. I top the pancakes with strawberries, nuts and melted chocolate. Wonder what to do with those tops? Put them in the jar for the chickens or compost them.
For lunch I make pesto pasta, for which I use the kale stems from Saturday night. It’s delicious and no one can tell your pesto has stems in there. Not even my little brother, who is anti anything healthy, noticed.
In the afternoon I go to the garden and pick up some lemons with my cousins, which I then use to make lemon jam.
Also, I continue my pickling adventure by putting some onions in a jar with water, salt, vinegar and spices.
For dinner, I make salmon (which I thaw from the freezer) with roasted zucchini, carrot and asparagus.
·
·
·
·
·
RESULTS:
During the course of the week, no food was irrationally thrown away. I used all the leftovers, old ingredients, frozen meat, dried and canned goods. I encouraged my family to consume legumes, cereals and pantry-friendly goods, as well as the local vegetables I am lucky to have in my garden and in the box I get delivered every week. Also, we stored in a jar all the organic waste that chickens could eat and fed those residues to them.
Besides, by making my own milk, granola and yogurt and using the water filter instead of water bottles, I calculate I stopped using 35 bottles of water, about 7 yogurt pots, 4 bricks and a bag of store-bought granola. We only threw away one bag of plastic residuals in the entire week.
I avoided buying packaged pastries and breakfast cereals by making my own, and also cut down the usage of soup bricks by making my own stock. Therefore, the three trash bags of paper waste were also diminished to one.
As for the composting, I am still working on that. The first step towards it was the piling of the tree cuttings in a corner of my orchard, but I still have to incorporate food waste into the pile.
During the week, I invested on buying online big amounts of staple goods, such as oats, seeds and flour from a local distributor. By buying few larger bags instead of several small ones, the amount of plastic that is later thrown away is diminished. I also ordered some more plants for my orchard, including cucumbers, strawberries and eggplants, as well as some aromatics like dill and lavender. In a few months, I shall get fresh organic vegetables from my own garden. As for the aromatics, I will be able to collect leaves any time I want, avoiding in this way the buying of individual plastic wrappings.
TOWARDS A VERDICT:
In just one week, I noticed a huge difference on the amount of food and wrapping thrown away in my household.
My parents, brother and I have gone from throwing away a dozen bags of trash every week to only four. We still have a long way to achieve minimal waste, but we are on the right path.
I followed Frea Restaurant (the world's first plant based zero waste restaurant) owners Jasmin Frea and David Suchy’s tips to store and preserve food. The methods that have proven most useful for me were making soups and smoothies with the overripe or almost moldy produce and the repurposing of unwanted food, by feeding it to the chickens or by creating delicious recipes with unpopular ingredients (such as the porridge made from residues from my oat milk or the kale stem pesto).
I have learnt to appreciate and celebrate the food I am given by the earth. I have made the most of every ingredient I got my hands on and used it in simple but creative ways to create wholesome meals. By collecting and receiving local organic vegetables, I make sure I don’t buy individually wrapped produce at the supermarket and support local farmers.
On the con side, although I generally enjoy cooking and making things myself, I noticed I spent much more time in the kitchen. When you make almost everything from scratch, it takes inevitably to spend more time cooking. However, time can be efficiently managed. By meal prepping once a week and establishing clear organized meal plans, you can save time and energy, ultimately spending less hours in the kitchen.
Also, achieving a minimal food waste is easier when you live in a house with a garden, a terrace or a balcony, as you can compost and use the excess food waste as fertilizer for your plants or as food for your animals. Nonetheless, it is still possible to achieve the goal if living in an apartment in the city (e.g., by giving excess food and compost to local markets or organisations) and, sometimes, it’s even easier to buy sustainably, as there are more options for shops that sell in bulk, packaging-free products or organic goods.
Food waste is a global problem and it needs to be managed. Achieving a minimal food waste situation could be part of a utopian society, as many problems such as malnourishment, excess waste, poverty and the accumulation of products on landfills would be solved. 25% of the world’s freshwater supply is used to grow food that is never eaten and if food waste were a country it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after China and the United States.
Food waste is a crisis that affects both the environment and the world population. The FAO estimates that cutting down food waste by one fourth could feed the 820 million people that suffer from severe hunger and malnutrition.
Eating and buying consciously makes individuals eat better and healthier. Preference is given to those foods that are more durable, local and have a smaller impact on the environment and every ingredient is wholly used and repurposed. Martin says it herself: “minimal food waste would afford for everyone to understand that food supply is seasonal and should be regional”.
Also, wasted food is wasted money.
I have experienced myself that by making things from scratch you can save huge amounts of money in the long run, a simple estimated calculation serves as evidence. So, the tackling of the food waste problem is not only a solution for the current climate and hunger crises, but also contributes to the increase of personal wealth.
After this challenge, I cannot find a better verdict than the words Frea’s founders shared with me:
"As long as everyone is buying more than what they actually need and asking for unseasonal, unregional products, food waste is unavoidable”.