More than a billion dollars of food wasted

.....and five ways to stop throwing fruit and veg in the bin.

Each year New Zealanders throw out $1.17billion worth of avoidable food waste. That's 86kg's per Kiwi household, the equivalent of 60 rotisserie chickens or three full shopping trolleys a year.

This wastage not only hurts our pockets but is also hugely damaging to our environment. Today (29th September) marks the second UN International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. The day is a call to action for everyone to increase efforts to reduce food loss and waste to help ensure food security for all.

Here in New Zealand the reason for this waste is generally a lack of planning and a lack of knowledge about how to best store food, to ensure it lasts.

Love Food Hate Waste NZ is running a Value Your Food Campaign. The message reminds us that behind every piece of food is a story of natural resource and hard work.

As well as food being discarded because it has gone off, parts of food that are completely edible are often chucked away. Yet broccoli stems and silverbeet stalks are nutritious and delicious.

In addition, 29 million loaves of bread are binned and 12 thousand tonnes of potatoes are dumped each year.

The good news is this waste can be easily tackled. To help New Zealanders value their food, Love Food Hate Waste has come up with recipes to use every last bit. Here are five from the list to take advantage of seasonal produce.

1. Turn those woody asparagus ends into an easy dip with this tasty Asparagus Stalk Pesto.
2. Use up whole lemons with this flavoursome Whole Lemon Loaf.
3. Put your baking apron on and get going on this delicious Whole Orange and Almond Cake
4. Take inspiration from Italy with this braised Italian-style Silverbeet Stalks recipe
5. Ditch the meat for these hearty Tumeric and Garlic Cauliflower Steaks

Everyday, we can all do something. When we throw out an uneaten apple we are also throwing out all the hard work and resources that went into producing it; emissions that were generated while producing that food were created for no reason.

At New Zealand’s Food Waste Summit in March this year, a theme that emerged was the need to connect food producers with consumers so that the value of food is understood beyond its dollar value.

The disconnection is one of the reasons people don’t always try to reduce their food waste as much as they could. A collaboration between Love Food Hate Waste and Beef and Lamb NZ evolved out of this hui and resulted in a video that conveys the connection between the producer and those eating the food.

For more information and recipes check out our Love Food Hate Waste Facebook and Instagram pages.

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