Taking care to not throw good food away
At Appleby Playcentre, food waste is under discussion. Four families there, who took part in a local foodwaste survey in April last year, are doing a great job to reduce the amount of good kai that ends up being chucked in the rubbish.
These families had an opportunity to review their cooking and eating habits when they, together with 15 other Nelson/Tasman households, kept a food waste diary for one week. The diaries were designed to inform the region’s councils exactly what people are throwing out and why. The results from this local study were included in a national survey to find out what and how much the average New Zealand household is wasting as a precursor to running a nationwide campaign Love Food, Hate Waste to value our food, waste less, and save money at the same time.
Data from the national surveys, involving nearly 1400 New Zealand households, have been combined: the results are startling. The average household throws away more than 80kg of uneaten food per year into their council rubbish bin, adding up to a staggering $872 million wasted in New Zealand each year. Bread is top of the list: crusts from sandwiches, the ends of bread and even entire unopened loaves have been found in rubbish bins around the country. Leftovers, potatoes, apples and chickens follow closely behind. Families with children, large families (five), young adults aged 16–24 years, and high-income families have been found to waste the most food.
Since the survey, Nelson Environment Centre, contracted by Nelson City and Tasman District Councils, has been working on ways to help families save money by reducing their waste. To kick off, a series of parent workshops will be delivered through the Nelson/ Tasman Kindergarten Association. We will also soon release a series of YouTube clips featuring local chef Michael McMeeken, filmed by local filmmaker Emma Heke, to show how leftovers can be turned into delicious, healthy meals.
So what have the families learnt from completing their diaries nearly a year ago? They agree that bread is a major culprit, together with fruit and veg peelings. Uneaten school lunches are a major source of waste.
‘‘Recording everything we wasted for one week made us really aware of which foods we were wasting and how much. Having four young children means that any money wasted on food is an issue, so trying to avoid wasting food is really important. It’s the small things that make a difference, like checking the kids’ lunchboxes after school and offering it to them when they get home instead of chucking it away, and using the leftover milk from the children’s breakfast cereals in a smoothie after school’’, said Amy.
Saving money is their main incentive for cutting down on the waste, that and teaching the kids the right thing for the environment. Since the diary they have all made some changes, like planning meals and reducing their portion sizes. ‘‘I used to buy whole bags of apples and tomatoes, but now I buy them loose and count them; I only need four apples instead of a whole bag for the school lunchboxes,’’ said Hayley.
‘‘I always try to use up food that needs eating, like freezing bananas that are getting too ripe and my husband takes leftover rice with his lunch the next day,’’ said Erika. ‘‘Bread crusts go to the chickens. Planning and making up a shopping list is important and only buying things on special when you know it’s an item you definitely will use.’’
The families’ other tried-andtrue techniques for eliminating food wastage include:
Storing bread in the freezer and only taking out what you will eat in a day
Juicing fruit and veg that’s looking tired, e.g. silverbeet, apples and bananas
Mashing leftover banana into porridge
Giving the kids more fruit for breakfast and less in their lunchboxes
Making mini quiches out of leftovers, e.g. that last piece of ham
Being smart about food storage; eg, hiding the new peanut butter jar behind the one that needs eating up
Scraps that end up not getting used are fed to family pets. Composting is the final resort: unlike households in Wellington and Auckland, most of the local families in the diary study compost their food scraps.
The Appleby families’ priorities for food – human consumption, animal consumption, composting – mirror those in the Love Food, Hate Waste campaign being launched by councils here and across New Zealand this week.
‘‘It’s an issue that’s flown under the radar, and it’s bigger than most people realise,’’ says Nelson city councillor Gaile Noonan. ‘‘The average NZ household loses $563 a year from wasting perfectly good food. Not only does it waste household money, but it also puts an unnecessary strain on our local landfills and creates methane, which contributes to climate change. We certainly don’t need that here in Nelson and Tasman.’’
For more information on the Love Food, Hate Waste campaign, and tips on how to avoid wasting food, go to www.facebook.com/ lovefoodhatewastenz and follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/ LFHW_NZ .