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Thismonthour roving foodcolumnist, RosieBirkett,
askswhyweare still throwingaway somuch food
A LOTONHER PLATE
What a waste
DID YOU KNOW
that in the UK
we throw away 7.2million tonnes
of food and drink fromour homes
every year? And that this garbage
mountain costs us £12bn (¤15.2bn),
clogs landfills and results in the
equivalent of 17million tonnes
of CO
2
emissions? These are just
some of the statistics cited by
Love Food HateWaste (
england.
lovefoodhatewaste.com
), the non-
profit organisation raising awareness
about how to reduce foodwaste;
an issue that couldn’t bemore
important now, given the current
recession in Europe.
You only need to turn on the
news to know that many people
are going hungry because they
can’t afford to make ends meet,
which makes the amount of food
There are plenty of chefsmaking a noise
about waste and introducing responsible
practises into their kitchens
compost machines for food waste,
which gets turned into biogas.”
Stenbeck is also obsessive about
portion control, monitoring how
much his guests eat and what
they discard, and altering his
dishes accordingly. “People eat
everything on the plate – we don’t
do enormous portions – though
if people want more we’ll give
it to them.”
London chef Anthony
Demetre, of Arbutus, Wild
Honey and Les Deux Salons,
has a policy of using lesser
known, cheaper cuts of meat
that are often discarded, and
closely monitors his chefs’ waste.
Also in the UK, the Sustainable
Restaurant Association is trying
to smash taboos around taking
being thrown away even more
scandalous. Restaurants are some
of the worst offenders, producing
more than three million tonnes of
mixed waste each year.
Thankfully, there are plenty of
chefs making a noise about waste
and introducing responsible
practices into their kitchens. Björn
Stenbeck’s organic restaurant,
Salt and Brygga (
saltochbrygga.
se
), in Malmö, Sweden, has been
pioneering responsible food
practices for over a decade. “We
have only one garbage bin and
100 seats,” he says. “We have two
home leftovers, something widely
accepted in the USA. Its Too Good
toWaste programme provides
restaurants with biodegradable
packaging for wrapping up
customers’ unfinished food.
At a time when emergency
food banks are being set
up, there really is no
excuse for being wasteful.
With the help of these
groups, we can all
think twice about
opening the bin or
leaving our meals
unfinished.