Yummy, delicious and fun was the overwhelming response from the kids taking part in the zero waste, healthy food cooking class at Taumarunui REAP today (Mon 8 July).

At today’s class the kids cooked a family favourite Nachos from the winter ‘Easy Choice Family Kai’ cookbook from ‘Love Food Hate Waste’ with the help of Ruapehu Waste Minimisation Educator Emily Jasmine.

Emily said that the class aims to give kids practical life skills and confidence to cook something nutritious and safely making use of cheap, simple, readily available ingredients and reducing food waste.

“We use recipes from the ‘Easy Choice Family Kai’ cookbook which has been specially developed to help families shop for, cook and eat nourishing and affordable food,” she said.

“There are four seasonal cookbooks each containing a four weekly meal plan to feed a family of six for around $60 per week.

People can pick-up a copy of the winter recipe from their Council office or all four recipe books for spring, summer, autumn or winter can be read or downloaded from Council’s website (see A-Z, Love Food Hate Waste).

Our next kids cooking class we will be making a delicious Salmon Burger recipe from the cook book.

Unfortunately this class is already full however if parents are interested in having their children take part in future sessions or other fun, child friendly, waste minimization workshops or activities they can register their interest at the REAP office or on Council’s website.”

Emily added that food waste is a huge issue with Love Food Hate Waste estimating that Kiwi’s send almost 160,000 tonnes of food which could have been eaten to their local landfill every year.

“Previous waste audits of what Ruapehu residents are sending to landfill has highlighted that over 50% of it is compostable material predominately food waste.

With the Taumarunui Landfill closing and higher environmental standards being demanded by the public the cost of waste disposal is only going to go up.

Eating all your food and composting anything that cannot be eaten is a great way of saving money in rubbish disposal costs and helping out our beautiful environment.

For more helpful, practical advice on reducing home waste people should see Council’s website ruapehudc.govt.nz and click on the ‘Ruapehu Zero Waste 2040’ spot on the homepage,” she said.

© Scoop Media