How to create less food waste at home
And what the heck is upcycling food?!
At Bowl and Arrow, we are pretty proud to say that not a lot of our food, even produce, goes to waste. One of the biggest topics covered this year for Earth Day is food waste reduction and food upcycling, as this is one of the most important things we can do to help global warming.
Food that is never eaten or used has huge environmental costs — from the land and resources used to make the food, to the transporting of ingredients to stores. We can all do our part to reduce this food waste and help the planet.
25% of the worlds food is never eaten, meaning that the foods production wasted land and resources emit unnecessary greenhouse gases. Food is wasted from more than just what you throw away at home. Crops can be thrown out due to weather, low market prices, or high labour costs. Grocery stores will often overstock their shelves to make them look good, and then throw out excess product or ‘ugly’ produce.
Much of this is perfectly edible and nutritious, and is only unacceptable because it doesn’t look good but is still perfectly safe to eat. Upcycling changes this - it makes the most out of food by using every part of it, or ensuring it’s being put to its best and highest use. This makes the food itself more sustainable and able to do more with less.
Small farmers often struggle to compete with major producers, and are especially vulnerable to changes in the value of their crops. Up-cycling foods opens new markets for local farmers to sell their excess product and use it in a different way - for example the shells of coconuts or banana peels!
Some ways that we love to up-cycle our food and to prevent waste in our own homes and in the kitchen at B&A:
If your bananas are ripening too quickly to eat in the fruit bowl, peel them, chop them and pop them in the freezer - when they are spotty or going brown, they are the sweetest, perfect to pop in the blender for a smoothie, or make a loaf of banana bread!
If you get to the end of the week and you’ve still got a load of veggies to use up, either make a soup using all the parts of the vegetable - skins and all - or pop any un-used produce in the freezer if you haven’t got time, and do it later!
We save our coffee grounds and give them out to customers - coffee is SO good for the garden, and mixing it into your compost gives the plants juicy nutrients they can’t get from anywhere else.
If you have a machine at home, you can also use them to make your own exfoliating coffee scrubs - just add some raw sugar and a little bit of coconut oil!
Plan your week - make a list before you head to the supermarket, and try to use items for more than one meal if you can… and how good are leftovers?!
When buying fresh produce, look our for initiatives like ‘The Odd Bunch’ at Countdown, or get a delivery from a business like https://www.perfectlyimperfect.org.nz/ of ‘ugly’ but equally if not more tasty, produce to your door!
If you have to chuck some food out, try to compost it in a home compost bin or a worm farm, and if you are out, make sure you throw it in the compost bin.
All of our packaging at Bowl and Arrow is able to be commercially composted, so making sure that it all goes in the correct bin is just as important - this means it will be turned into mulch and used as compost to grow more plants later on down the track.
If you want to check out more about Earth Day and what its all about, or maybe see what else you can be doing to help, check out their website at https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2021/