Waste

“The rich must stop consuming so much”, says Hervé Guyomard of the French agricultural and development research agency INRA. This is one of three conditions for being able to feed the 9 billion people projected to be living on poor little Earth by 2050 while also protecting the environment.

I gleaned this from a small item in New Scientist (NS) for 15 January 2011, p 6. INRA and  CIRAD (another research agency), have for the past 5 years undertaken a modeling exercise looking at how a goal of 3000 calories per day for everyone in the world, including 500 calories form animal sources, could be achieved with and without environmental limits on farming. Overall, the study found it would be possible to achieve the calorie goal and environmental protection as well.

The study found three main conditions for achieving this, and again I quote from NS:
1. Some regions of the world will depend even more on imports, which means that there needs to be a global solution to counter ‘excessive fluctuations in world prices so that imports are not hindered’.
2. “The rich must stop consuming so much”, in the words of Hervé Guyomard of INRA. Guyomard pointed out that food amounting to 800 calories per person is lost each day was waste in richer nations, nearly a third, in other words, of the daily total calorie intake they were looking at.
3. Realistic yield increases could feed everyone even when measures are taken to protect the environment, but we will need to tailor detailed solutions for different regions.’

To achieve these, food scientists, says Guyomard, will have to organize globally, as climate scientists are doing.

I’ve tracked down the report - Agrimonde. Scenarios and Challenges for Feeding the World in 2050 – which is available from CIRAD in an English translation, and will have more to say once I’ve devoured it.

Right now, though, I wanted to talk about personal food wastage, to do a sort of mea culpa for my part as a person in a rich country of wasting 800 calories per day.

Let me start by saying that I do what I can already to cut down on the likelihood that I will waste food. I make a point of looking at what’s actually in the fridge or kitchen cupboards before deciding on what to have for dinner and try and plan and shop accordingly. I no longer throw away the leafy green tops of root vegetables like beetroot, turnips or parsnips, turning them into mallungs (Sri Lankan dishes of chopped greens with onion, turmeric, mustard seed), or tossing them in with dhal or into stews and casseroles. I have a bag in the fridge into which lime and lemon halves go once squeezed, and when I have enough I take them out, put them on a tray, sprinkle salt over, leave to dry out and brown in the sun, then pack them into a jar with vinegar and chilies and let them slowly pickle. I bought a seriously big, highly efficient compost bin which already gives a regular supply of highly concentrated black nutrient rich liquid fertilizer, and which will come next spring provide superb material to reinvigorate the vegie beds. Guests at meals now know they can expect me to bring out the plastic takeaway containers, also hoarded, in the hope that they have liked the meal enough to help with the leftovers. And there’s savings to be made on pet food, and much appreciation to be received also, when what can’t be managed by me, Marilyn, or our are guests is mixed in with the poochies’s  roo mince and chicken bones.

But I’ve been spending time over the last weeks going through the aforementioned cupboards and my two freezers and having a good look at what’s been hoarded in there from gifts kind hearted relatives and friends have given me, or that I have collected during one of my food fads, or that I have just plain over-purchased, and which I have failed to be enthused by when it comes to planning the next meal.

Like the 8 different kinds of flours I’ve managed to collect, or the 8 kinds of beans, or 5 types of rice, or the specialty grains (couscous, burghul, polenta etc.) – more carbohydrate than a proto diabetic like me should have having around. Or the packets of home butchered veal, calf and pig that I’ve stored in the freezer in the garage, layered like an archaeological dig in some frozen wasteland. Or the jams, pickles, spreads, sauces that inevitably come the way of the foodie with a reputation for liking either the exotic or the home-made, or indeed have been purchased on a whim that should have been whammed at the time.

It’s startling how much there is that has hung around for years not being used. So, my New Year resolution is to work my way through what of it I can. If that means some enterprising weevils or winged widgets are made homeless or made into meal, or that I have to dip daily into the Country Women’s Association cookbooks for sponge and tart tidbits, or that the pizza oven and barbecue have to be stoked 24/7, or if it means I have to investigate ever more arcane areas of cuisines for which once I provisioned myself, so be it.


I'll keep you posted on how I go.