What is food waste? Food waste refers to edible food, which is intended for human consumption, but instead gets disposed or expires. This occurs in numerous ways, like during meal preparations, produce transportation and sale, or food services. It also includes plate waste, spoiled food, and discarded peels. According to The Ecoexperts, at least a third of food produced globally goes to waste. Which is a tragic social injustice when you consider how hungry other parts of the world are, and how far that “waste” would go in ending that hunger.
Leaving cauliflower on your plate is not only bad manners to the chef but it is environmentally troublesome as well. Most of those leftovers end up in landfills, which in turn is responsible for carbon emissions to the atmosphere. All this then further contributes to the unpleasant devastation which is climate change.
It is therefore encumbered upon us to do something about that and manage our household purchases of food so it can be proportional to our consumption. Fortunately, a wonderful lady from Scotland who goes by the name of Suzanne Mulholland came up with a great concept of batch cooking and freezing food. Her approach to this concept is simple, she prepares twice the amount needed; one for that day and another to freeze. This is not only an environmentally friendly approach to food consumption, but it can also help you save up to 50% of your shopping expenditure, that is money which will go a long way in helping you weather this economic storm everyone is facing.
Suzanne also proposes that we buy frozen fruits and vegetables that will last us weeks, as opposed to buying fresh ones that we will only put in our bins before the end of the week. That is another way we pile up the food waste, by buying things that need immediate usage without having the time to use them before their expiration date. Buy the type of food you have the capacity to store.
Food waste should be the last thing in anyone’s mind, especially since frozen food is easy to store, and you can store up as many meals as you deem reasonable for future usage, as long as your freezer has enough space for it. This is the way to go. Start batch cooking and freezing food now and start saving on your shopping immediately.
