Canadians wasting hundreds of dollars worth of good food
Creative meals, planning can save hundreds of dollars over a year
Got $30 in your wallet? Throw it in the trash can.
If you’re part of an average Canadian household, that’s how much uneaten food you’re tossing out every week. And that comes to $1,560 worth of wasted food a year.
That’s not only a big bite out of your food dollar, it’s 20 per cent of the groceries you’re buying, according to Statistics Canada.
And here’s another unappetizing fact to chew on: you’re paying your municipality $200 to $400 a year to get rid of that wasted food.
Now consider agribusiness expert Martin Gooch’s message: “Food will get more expensive,” he predicts, noting it’s currently cheap and plentiful in this part of the world.
“I call it ‘affluence and abundance.’ It’s so easy to get and there’s so much of it,” he says, adding that consumers aren’t paying the full price of what it costs to produce food.
That’s going to change due to such factors as lower supplies, water issues, farming challenges and labour shortages, says Gooch, CEO and founder of Value Chain Management International (VCMI), an Oakville consulting firm that focuses on reducing food waste in the business sector.
Expanding populations, dwindling resources and greater production costs are among the reasons why waste reduction is increasingly important, Gooch says.
Canada’s annual contribution to the global problem adds up to $31billion worth of food, almost half of which comes from our kitchens. The average consumer feeds their garbage can or green bin 183 kilograms of solid food a year.
The biggest component is fruits and vegetables, followed by meat and seafood, grain products and dairy, according to a 2014 report by VCMI. People buy too much, prepare too much food and neglect to plan meals, the report found.
So let’s head to the kitchen, where a partial solution, it seems, is to think like a chef.
“Some people only see leftovers as lunch the next day and they don’t realize that those leftovers can be turned into a completely different meal,” says Chuck Hughes, celebrity chef, restaurateur and television personality.
He suggests turning Sunday’s leftover roast chicken and vegetables into pot pie or crisping up fish skin for chips to accompany homemade salmon tartare. And caramel apple bread pudding made from a leftover loaf is “the best thing since stale bread.”
Those are among the easy recipes, tips and inspiration Hughes offers on a video series promoting the end of food waste, which he terms “bad for the wallet and bad for the planet.”
Called “LG Continuous Kitchen,” the seven-part series of three-minute demos was produced by LG Electronics Canada Inc.
“The number one tip for reducing food waste is knowing what’s in your fridge,” Hughes advised in an email to the Star. “If you find yourself throwing out food before you can use it, you’ve bought too much.”
Groceries go further with “a little creativity and the willingness to try something new,” says Hughes, who has two restaurants in Montreal. He recommends shopping with a menu plan for the week rather than making random purchases.
Chucking uneaten edibles can bump up grocery bills by 10 per cent or more, according to VCMI.
Kitchen discards account for half of the organic waste that municipalities dispose of. It’s a service for which taxpayers typically shell out $400 to $800 a year, Gooch says. (Hence the $200 to $400 cost mentioned above.)
He believes consumers have lost their connection to where and how food is produced, lacking any concept of the skills, natural resources, processes and infrastructure required.
“We buy an apple at the grocery store but we don’t connect with the fact that it took a year to produce that one apple,” he says.
Gooch believes an attitude adjustment is needed — kids should be taught about agriculture in schools, he says, but people can also educate themselves by shopping at farmers’ markets, going on farm tours or visiting Milton’s Country Heritage Park, which Gooch describes as a model of ethical farming.
Chef Hughes is already cultivating interest in his own family.
“The kids and I and their grandmother just planted a garden,” he tells the Star.
“I am hoping it will get them interested not only about where food comes from, but also about cooking.”
“The number one tip for reducing food waste is knowing what’s in your fridge. If you find yourself throwing out food before you can use it, you’ve bought too much.” CHUCK HUGHES CELEBRITY CHEF