A small step..

There are a lot of people who don’t have enough to eat, and there are enough restaurants who (have to) throw away food. There’s a solution, you would say. That’s exactly what an Indian restaurant owner thought. She thought that the many homeless people in her city, Kochi, could need some food, which would be thrown away otherwise. The solution was to put a fridge in front of her restaurant so that homeless people could serve themselves, for free of course! This restaurant owner, Pauline, leaves around 75-80 portions a day and other restaurants and travelers can also put food in the fridge for other people. She says that money belongs to the ‘system’, but that resources belong to society, so to us people.

Now is this solution immediately world-changing? No. But it’s very sweet and it serves its purpose: feeding people who are hungry with food the restaurants don’t need any more. If every restaurant or other food-related stores would do the same, then we would have a lot less hungry people. It’s a small act with big quality of life results for the hungry people.

I also like the idea that it can be used by everyone. Sharing is caring and I think people would love to help other people by leaving food in this fridge, just to make them happy. Food waste is big, and because we can all do something about it, I think this is a great idea! For more tips on the no-waste principle, read another article of mine which I wrote for my internship! Click here.

Source

No Waste? Say Yes!

In Holland, we throw away approximately 50 kilos of food per person, per year. What?! Of course, that cannot go on anymore. And that despite it is super easy to throw away less food. Follow these tips and start with implementing the no waste principle in your own kitchen!

The tips are being structured according to the principle of this website. The tips follow a simple framework, namely: buy smart, cook smart and store smart. https://www.milieucentraal.nl/voeding/voorkom-voedselverspilling/

Buy smart

• Make an inventory what you do and don’t have in your home. These products you don’t have to buy anymore.
• Only buy food which you really need, so look closely to what you’re about to eat that week and buy only that. Of course, a bag of chips also counts, as long as you’re eating it that week.
• Look carefully at the date of consumption. If you know that you’re going to eat a certain product, you can buy the pack of milk which isn’t the long-lasting. This stimulates you to really use it. If you know that you find this difficult, you can buy freezable products if possible.
• Use before isn’t the same as best before. On meat products often is a use before date. After this date, you must throw it away. But on other, less-perishable products there’s usually a best before date, which means that, as long as it doesn’t look green and smells weird, you can perfectly eat that bag of chips.

Cook smart

• Use reasonable quantities, so not with the motto ‘we will eat that later on this week’. Preferably, cook per day, and if you really can’t do that you can also make a little more, for example fried rice.
• Always have a stock of potatoes, pasta and rice, so that you always have these products. These products are fairly non-perishable and you will most likely use them a lot.

Stock smart

• Read the packaging carefully, then you’ll see how you can stock it the best way. Most products perish less quick when cooled, but eggs for example, you mustn’t put into the fridge.
• Adjust your fridge at 4 degrees, that appears to be the ideal temperature for keeping goods.
• First, use your leftovers before opening new packages. This way, you won’t have to throw away things so soon.

Besides this, you can always cook with your leftovers! So you can take one day a week as a leftover day on which you’re cooking creatively with all leftovers. In this article are a few tips on how to cook with leftovers.

Good luck!