From handy tips on reducing food waste to redistributing surplus food, FOODLOVER investigates….
Reducing the nation’s food waste starts in our own kitchens. We ask sustainability chef and zero-waste advocate, Tom Hunt, about his handy tips, attitudes towards surplus food and things you didn’t know about reducing food waste in the kitchen…
“I’m a chef, food writer and sustainability consultant with a keen interest in nutrition ecology and climate change. I believe in a world with a fair global food system where our actions benefit other people and nature.
I’ve always been interested in organics, permaculture and alternatives to conventional food. However, it wasn’t until 2011 when I was invited by Tristram Stuart (founder of food waste charity, Feedback) to feed 200 people food that would have otherwise been wasted that I began to consistently prioritise the environment and people involved in the production of my food. This event demonstrated how we are linked to people and places around the world through our food and opened my eyes to how and why our actions matter. We saved almost 1 tonne of food that day and donated the funds to charity that went into saving many thousand more plates from going to waste and consequently fed more people in need.
In response to the global food waste scandal, I developed a whole new approach to life and food called “root to fruit eating” that aims to enable everyone, from home cooks to industry chefs, to tackle climate change through the food they cook and eat.
Root to fruit eating is based on three core principles:
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- EAT FOR PLEASURE
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- EAT WHOLE FOODS
- EAT THE BEST FOOD YOU CAN
We’ve lost touch with the true value of food. It has become a commodity, purchased from unnatural environments that do little to represent where that food came from, or the hard labour or resources expelled to produce it. In order to waste less food, we need to understand how valuable it truly is.
Eating for pleasure helps us do this as we find out more about where our food comes from and who made it. Seeking out ingredients we really love is a healthy approach to eating and leads to a good and thrifty diet.
Eating whole foods naturally reduces the waste created during the production of our food. Fibre and the most nutritious parts of ingredients are removed from processed foods then often discarded as a waste product or used for animal feed. If we take a whole food diet literally and begin to eat meat and vegetables from nose to tail and root to fruit we really begin to save food and simultaneously make it more affordable.
Eating the best food we can is my last core point and vital for improving our diets and wasting less food. Not all of us can afford high-priced ingredients but eating a diverse seasonal- and vegetable-led diet is one of the most affordable ways to eat. When we are able, choosing better ingredients more often than not means more sustainable ingredients and will help us restore the value we should give to the food we eat.”
Five root to fruit tips that will reduce food waste:
- Eat whole vegetables (including the skins, stems and leaves).
- Eat seasonal, local food.
- Eat less processed food.
- Eat more vegetables.
- Eat everything and be creative
http://www.tomsfeast.com/