01.10.2021

 Food waste 

I read an article about food waste, and it was very interesting for me, so I would like to gather information for this topic.

This time, I will try a different style of my journal.

What is food waste?
How bad is food waste in the world?
What are the reasons of food waste?
How can we avoid food waste?

What is food waste?

Food waste is food that is not eaten and throw away. Correctly say, there are two words related to wood waste, food loss and food waste. 

Food loss refers to food that usually happens during the food supply chain and gets spoilt or loss, incurs reduction of quality and value. It is said that this problem occurs mainly in developing countries due to insufficient infrastructure.

On the other hand, food waste refers to food that occurs in the last stage of food supply chain and wasted it even quality of food is good. It is said that this happens mainly in the developed countries.

I though food waste only happening in developed counties, but it also happens developing counties as well. As reasons are completely different, different approaches are needed.

How bad is food waste in the world? In Australia?

According to the article, we waste about a third of all produced and it goes to landfills. Moreover, it generates vast amounts of greenhouse gases.

The other date showed about 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emission is associated with food waste. 1.3 billion tonnes of food is being wasted, while one in nine is starving.

In Australia, 7.3 million tonnes of food is lost or waste annually whilst approximately 5 millions people are going hungry.

 

It sounds little bit strange for me because food waste and huger are happening at same time in Australia. I think if there are good systems, like food sharing apps, it would not occur, and it can fix easily since the distance is not problem. 

Whereas, 6.12 billion tonnes of food were wasted in Japan which is imported more than 60% food from abroad. Like Australia, around 5 million people are going hungry in Japan. Although both countries are similar numbers, Japanese population is five times of Australian; therefore, percentage of Japanese food waste and hunger is lower than Australia. 

I think this is because of culture. Each culture has different value towards food and waste, especially in Japanese culture there is a word “mottainai” もったいない which means the feeling regret of waste.  The word really shows Japanese basic mind. The word “mottainai” be used to everything such as water, time, and energy. I cannot remember how many time my parents and grandparents said “mottainai” to me. 

What are the reasons of food waste?

According to Conserve Energy Future, there are main 7 reasons.

1. Lack of proper planning. These day people are busy and change their food prepare plans. We also forget to use food.

2. Buying and preparing too much food. We buy food more than we consume or never reuse food because we put food at the back of our fridge. 

3. Faults in industrial processing and keeping up with food safety policies. This problem happens in producer sides.

4. Managerial, financial and technical constraints. This sometimes happen in developing countries because of technical difficulties in the lines of harvesting methods, storage, and cooling problems in adverse weather conditions, processing, packaging, infrastructure, and marketing systems.

5. Over-preparation of food in foodservice industry. Hotels and restaurant tend to overproduce food due to anticipation of high customer volume and the ability to not running out of the menu.

6. Over-merchandizing and over-ordering in stores. Stores habitually more focuses on over-merchandizing and uses beautiful and attractive displays. They order more than selling and ugly one goes waste.

7. Consumer behaviour. Some people only pick perfect shape of vegetables and fruits.

How can we avoid food waste?

The article suggested nine ideas for reducing food waste.

1. Do not buy things you don’t need.
2. Organise your fridge and store food in see-through container which helps you to know what is there
3. Learn how to cook with leftover.
4. Plastic packaging helps protect food and make it last. Especially, meat and dairy products that spoils easily.
5. Use proper plates, not paper plate. Research showed people are more likely to throw food away since it seems as disposable.
6. Cook at home because eating out at restaurants is more wasteful.
7. Don’t choose bulk buying. It leads to more waste.
8. Set your fridge temperature at 5 degree or below and monitor it. In many household it is higher and food goes off quickly
9. Use food-sharing app and try giving away food you cannot use.

There are very practical and useful tips, and I can try them. I have never tried food-sharing app. Actually, I have never heard about it. It sounds interesting. I think that app is not only reduce food waste but also may make connection to the community.

I have a thermometer in my fridge, but I did not check it regularly. It is important to do it.  

 

 

English is my second language, so you may find incorrect sentences.

It would be great help if you leave a comment for me. 

Thank you for reading!