Seven simple ways to send less food to landfill.

By Amy Crawford

Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash

I'm going to hazard a guess and say you're conscious of food waste, but (hand-on-heart) you're not doing everything you could be doing towards reducing food waste in the home, me included. Truth be know, the majority of us could do a little, if not a lot better; it's easy to have good intentions, but it's only when we really commit to action that we make any difference at all.

It's for this reason that I am ever so thrilled to have renowned Australian educator and change agent, Alexx Stuart of Low Tox Life gracing the site today. Alexx is going to help whip us all into food waste reduction shape, just in time for the arrival of her much anticipated book Low Tox Life. Have a read and if you're not immediately inspired I'll be very suprised. 

A guest post by Alexx Stuart.

This is an excerpt with thanks to Murdoch Books and a little piece of the book that I absolutely love for the win win impact that it has. Less waste for us / the planet and the icing on top is becoming more mindful. Creating less waste in your day to day really is simply stepping into mindfulness and your personal power.

TINY BIN GOALS

The size of our bin has decreased by three-quarters in the past few years – each week our small 11-litre bin is about one-third full, down from filling a huge 50-litre bin each week. If you’re to find sustainability sustainable, I truly believe that slow and steady wins the race, making little changes over time. We started by composting, buying produce from the market and staples in bulk stores, and using more recyclable glass packaging. Imagine the waste we’ve saved from landfill in eight years!

FOOD WASTE

For 35 years I was completely mindless about the fact that when vegetable matter is compacted between other materials it doesn’t break down properly. Not to mention the food it could become for new plants to grow if composted and reused as fertilising gold. Or the financial waste or the waste of life if I tossed out meat or fish. Here are some scary food-waste facts:

• In Australia, 3.28 million tonnes of food is driven to landfill each year - that’s 137 kilograms (302 pounds) each.
• In the United Kingdom, it’s 7.3 million tonnes – 111 kilograms (245 pounds) per person – which makes it a slightly better performer than Australia.
• In the United States, it’s estimated that 27 million tonnes – around 50 per cent of all food produced in the country – is wasted each year.

All the world’s nearly 1 billion hungry people could be lifted out of malnourishment on less than a quarter of the food that’s wasted in the rich countries.

All of them. Isn’t that shocking? We move so fast, so disconnected from how our food is grown and produced, that we barely attach a value to it any more.

It’s time to slow down, connect, be grateful, waste less and make a global difference from our homes – again! Feeling powerful yet?

Photo by Alyson McPhee on Unsplash

SEVEN SIMPLE WAYS TO SEND LESS FOOD TO LANDFILL

• Start a fridge waste list. Write down everything you put in the bin. Make it a family challenge to reduce the number of items on your list each week, and if it’s blank at the end of a week, celebrate.
• Start a compost bin or a worm farm. Or use your local council’s green bin if they provide one. We store scraps in a metal bowl on one side of our sink, and take it down to the compost bin every couple of days.
• Scraps from onions, carrots, leeks, herbs and celery go in a produce bag in the freezer to be used for future stock making. Citrus peel is frozen for slow cooking or roasting – it adds great flavour!
• Don’t toss odds and sods of veg. Boil them with homemade stock and a few spices or herbs, add a splash of cream or coconut cream, and blitz.
• ‘Fridge Ends Soup’ tastes delicious and is different each week. "My Buy nothing new" Curry (page 138 of the new book) is super-tasty and very inexpensive.
• Avoid topping and tailing veg. Things like cucumbers and zucchini (courgettes) really don’t need it, and if you have to do it with green beans, don’t cut an inch off each end, but just a tiny few millimetres!
• Keep animal fats for reusing. Drain into a little jar and save money on butter and olive oil by frying with it the next time you’re cooking.
• Stop buying ‘two for one’ specials. Especially if you’re a small household and/or it can’t be frozen. Things on special are often a food-waste trap.
• Here's to a life with less waste - for our cash savings, for the landfill savings and for the feel good factor in doing our best for our beautiful home called earth.

Low Tox. Healthy You. Happy Planet. 

Alexx x

IT'S GIVEAWAY TIME! 

Now we've been thoroughly inspired by Alexx, we'd love to hear some of the things you do! For a chance to win one of THREE signed copies of the Low Tox Life book out July 1, pop your one favourite waste-reducing tip in the comments below.

Stuff you need to know to enter:

• Entries close COB Monday 25th July 2018 AEST and will be announced in the comments. You still have a couple of days to make the most of the super generous pre order goodies Alexx has put together for you which you can check out here, available until July 1.
• Winners will be chosen by random number generator - please make sure you check back to see if you have won next week, so often our winners never know they've won! You'll have 72 hours to respond or we'll need to reselect winners
• You must be a THI subscriber AND an Australian resident. If you're yet to join this tribe you can do so by popping your email address in towards the bottom right of this page.