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ALTONA CAN - Reduce Food Waste

If food waste was a country, it would be the 3rd largest emitter of greenhouse gases, right behind China and the US. Most estimates calculate that 40% of the food produced in the world never gets eaten, and as staggering as that number is, it’s even worse when you think about how many people go hungry every day.


So what can be done about it? Let’s start with our own fridges. I recently asked my students why food gets wasted in their homes and the number 1 answer was that it gets forgotten at the back of the fridge. The average Canadian family buys $1100 of food each year that they don’t eat and when I asked my students what they would rather spend that money on, you can probably imagine the long list of fun ideas they had. No one likes to waste money, and wasting food is essentially wasting money.

The average Canadian family buys $1100 of food each year that they don’t eat.


Food gets wasted at many other points along our food system, from the field to the store. Consumer fickleness can be blamed for some of it. For example, our demand for perfect produce causes scads of edible food to be tossed because it doesn’t meet the cosmetic standards we have become used to and studies show that we will buy more when displays are piled high.


Portion sizes can also be blamed for a lot of food waste. Plate sizes in our homes are 36% larger than they were 50 years ago, and restaurants typically serve meals that are 40% larger than the recommended serving size. This leads to more food on our plates than we can eat.


Some food waste is unavoidable, and then the best practice is to compost it. When food rots in a landfill it produces methane gas which is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Composting food waste ensures it decomposes in the presence of oxygen, which safely returns it back into food for the soil. Altona has year-round, curbside compost pick up which accepts all food waste and soiled paper products.


Love Food Hate Waste Canada is a great website for dozens of tips and tricks for reducing food waste. Carrot peel chips? Sounds yummy. Clean out the Fridge Fridays? Sounds like a great habit to start. Found a bumpy apple or crooked carrot at the store? Buy it to push the message “up stream” that we don’t need our produce to be perfect. 


Every tonne of food waste that is prevented is the equivalent of taking 1 car off the road for a year. It also saves you money, so eat what you buy and buy only what you’ll eat for a healthier planet and a heftier pocketbook.


Stats found at https://lovefoodhatewaste.ca/ 


Written by Connie H. Mueller for ACAN

ACAN seeks to educate and inspire sustainable practices in our community.

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