There’s no such thing as a free lunch…
Posted under: Or so I thought until yesterday when I went along to Feeding the 5000 in Trafalgar Square; an event was designed to highlight the levels of food waste by retailers, businesses and individuals.
Now I’m the first to admit that I am not the most environmentally friendly human being to grace the planet, but focussing on food and with quite a lot of buzz around the event, I thought it would be worth a look. And I wasn’t wrong. A team of volunteers worked like a well oiled machine to serve a curry to 5000 people made entirely from wonky or misshapen vegetables that would have been rejected by the supermarkets. A phenomenal feat by anyone’s standards, but within a two hour window, I was very impressed.
OK, so the curry wasn’t as authentic as you might find on Brick Lane or as refined as the Cinnamon Club, but it was still pretty good - a delicately spiced cauliflower, carrot and potato curry, heaped on top of rice served up in a wooden bowl. I heard some complain of a lack of heat, but to cater to the tastes of the masses, I thought they did a great job. I’m sure Jesus didn’t have a problem with people complaining about a lack of salt…
So I stood eating my curry listening to talks from Valentine Warner and Dick Strawbridge who were very passionate about the cause. Some of the figures being quoted were quite extraordinary and clearly making people think judging by the number signing the pledge to reduce waste.
According to the Feeding the 5000 team, more than a third of the world’s entire food production is wasted but less than a quarter of this waste would be enough to lift the world’s hungry out of malnourishment. This isn’t helped by the fact that an estimated 20%-40% of UK fruit and vegetables are wasted before they hit the supermarkets due to not meeting cosmetic standards. Admittedly, I like a good looking piece of fruit or veg, but I don’t want to hang it on a wall, I want to cook with it. And once it’s made its way into my dinner, all I care about is how good it tastes. I certainly wouldn’t be put off by a wonky carrot.
All in all, they came up with some quite shocking statistics but it was made clear to me that we can all make quite simple changes to play our part in resolving the problem. So I urge you to sign the pledge, try to only ever buy what you will use and think carefully if you can use (or freeze) something before throwing it away.