What can be done to reduce food waste?

GreyQueen

I'm in semi-agreement with the opinion that it's ridiculous to teach cookery in schools.

It is. This should be something which is every child's inheritance from their family, as we should learn most of what we need to know in our own homes.

Trouble is, some of us are blessed with patient, thoughtful and skillful parents. And some of us aren't. I was one of the lucky ones and even in my fifties still use skills I learned before I was ten.

What do you do with someone who has had no practical life skills imparted from their family, who can perhaps barely read or write, whose confidence about cooking or improvising is so rock-bottom that they're paralysed before they even start? Do you just shrug and say that they ought to be able to self-start their life journey in this info-rich environment and if they can't - tough.

I've often called to mind a young man of nineteen, working at a checkout in a discount store, who commented wistfully on something I was buying in quantity (I was making something else from it). He couldn't cook and lived on takeaways. He didn't look well on it and was storing up a lot of potential health problems which were likely to damage his life and could even have knock-on effects on the health of the children he might father one day.

I found myself very sad and angry that we live in a world where education will teach you all kinds of mostly useless things like terminal moraines on glaciers, the kings and queens of England and how to design boxes for processed food, but let you loose without what you need to know to have a decent life. And dares call it 'education'.:mad:

*climbs off soapbox*

Callie22

Whilst I agree to an extent that people learning to cook would help reduce waste, I do feel strongly that supermarkets have to take some responsibility. Ultimately, they've spent the better part of 100 years working out ways to get us in there, and to make us spend more once we've walked through the door. They employ sophisticated psychological tactics to encourage people to buy things that they don't necessarily need - from providing trollies on wheels (because if you only had a basket you'd stop when it got too heavy) to even the physical design of stores - for example, slippery floors that physically slow you down so that you spend longer looking at everything, fresh produce at the start of the store so that you fill your trolley up whilst you're feeling well-intentioned (and you feel less guilty about adding the special-offer 'treats' later), frozen stuff at the end so that you don't miss too much out when you're rushing to get your cold stuff home, deals with companies so that they pay to get their products in your eye-line etc etc.

Most people think that they're too smart to get sucked in but I'd hazard a guess that most people tend to go into auto-pilot when they're in a supermarket and that's how they end up buying too much. Ultimately, it's a battle between creating less waste and supermarkets that don't really care about that as long as they're still making high profits. They don't care if you chuck half your veg away, because they know that'll mean you'll be back to buy more later! I completely agree that people should buy less and use up more of what they buy, but it's naive to think that teaching kids to cook is going to have much of an effect against the milllions of pounds that supermarkets spend in order to get us to spend millions more.

ViolaLass

Callie22 wrote: »

Whilst I agree to an extent that people learning to cook would help reduce waste, I do feel strongly that supermarkets have to take some responsibility. Ultimately, they've spent the better part of 100 years working out ways to get us in there, and to make us spend more once we've walked through the door. They employ sophisticated psychological tactics to encourage people to buy things that they don't necessarily need - from providing trollies on wheels (because if you only had a basket you'd stop when it got too heavy) to even the physical design of stores - for example, slippery floors that physically slow you down so that you spend longer looking at everything, fresh produce at the start of the store so that you fill your trolley up whilst you're feeling well-intentioned (and you feel less guilty about adding the special-offer 'treats' later), frozen stuff at the end so that you don't miss too much out when you're rushing to get your cold stuff home, deals with companies so that they pay to get their products in your eye-line etc etc.

Most people think that they're too smart to get sucked in but I'd hazard a guess that most people tend to go into auto-pilot when they're in a supermarket and that's how they end up buying too much. Ultimately, it's a battle between creating less waste and supermarkets that don't really care about that as long as they're still making high profits. They don't care if you chuck half your veg away, because they know that'll mean you'll be back to buy more later! I completely agree that people should buy less and use up more of what they buy, but it's naive to think that teaching kids to cook is going to have much of an effect against the milllions of pounds that supermarkets spend in order to get us to spend millions more.

Do you have anything to back up your view that this leads to waste rather than, say, overeating?

mikki6416

Hi,

I don't personally have new ideas but I follow this group on Facebook and I love what they do. It's Re-f-use and they're all about stopping food waste. They often shame supermarkets that throw excessive food away (I think it's on there I have seen Iceland noted a few times) which otherwise could have been given to homeless people, food bank, or even to organisations such as Re-f-use.


What this organisation also does is accepts unsold/excess food and distributes it to the public for free if they can't use it themselves. They also run pop-up kitchens to use food and you just pay what you feel. I haven't been to one of their events yet as they're miles away from me, but I am sure they have lots of ideas on how food waste can be reduced.

https://www.facebook.com/refusecic/?fref=ts



There is also the high profile wedding they did with 'rubbish food'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36181334

ViolaLass

GreyQueen wrote: »

I've often called to mind a young man of nineteen, working at a checkout in a discount store, who commented wistfully on something I was buying in quantity (I was making something else from it). He couldn't cook and lived on takeaways. He didn't look well on it and was storing up a lot of potential health problems which were likely to damage his life and could even have knock-on effects on the health of the children he might father one day.

I found myself very sad and angry that we live in a world where education will teach you all kinds of mostly useless things like terminal moraines on glaciers, the kings and queens of England and how to design boxes for processed food, but let you loose without what you need to know to have a decent life. And dares call it 'education'.:mad:

*climbs off soapbox*

And this lad couldn't look online to find something and try it?

Mojisola

ViolaLass wrote: »

And this lad couldn't look online to find something and try it?

With the many recipes and youtube videos on preparing food, it has never been easier to learn to feed yourself well from scratch.

It does show a lack of initiative for him not to have made the effort.

blackandwhitebunny

I teach Food or Home Economics or Food Preparation and Cookery or whatever it's been called this week. Like many of my colleagues I would love to be able to spend more time teaching cooking skills, but can't for several reasons. Practical subjects are not valued by the government and have been relegated to the back of the curriculum, the current way league tables are compiled and schools are judged lead to students being forced to make most of their subject choices from the 'baccalaureate' subjects, once they have selected from these they can often only take one or two other options so have diffic.ult choices. The new specification addresses many of the subjects such as food security and waste but has so much content that there will be little time to teach practical skills.
Some element of food is compulsory in key stage 3 but is being squeezed out of the curriculum by even more Maths and English. Remember as well that academies don't have to follow the national curriculum and can drop anything they don't like or that is expensive to teach. Food is expensive to deliver as the class sizes are generally smaller, although they have crept up considerably over the last few years.
Various governments have made the correct noises about teaching cookery in schools but they have never followed it up with the legislation to make it effective. The following needs to be done to make it meaningful, class sizes need to be limited by law (and not meaningless guidance), schools should be forced to create timetables that give a sensible time for practical lessons, Food should be given the same value as humanities subjects in league table calculations and lastly but far from least, money should be provided for ingredients.

moneyistooshorttomention

ViolaLass wrote: »

And this lad couldn't look online to find something and try it?

I think there is a certain level of self-confidence necessary to try out new foods and/or new ways of doing things (or even just making something you already know - ie as packet junk food - but, this time, making it yourself).

Some people (like this lad probably) have been brought up in a background where food is just seen as "something necessary to fill your stomach" and with no thought as to it should be pleasurable as well. Others may have been brought up in one where the "cook" didnt dare try experimenting in any shape or form - because there wasnt enough money for food to allow for any being wasted because it didnt turn out successfully and/or the people due to eat it didnt like it.

It does take a certain amount of self-confidence to start experimenting with trying out different foods (particularly if cooking them oneself). It does also take having enough food money to be able to think "Oh well - if I dont like it or I ruin it in the making = it doesnt matter that much that it will get wasted".

I've had to teach myself to cook personally (didnt learn a thing from my mother) and couldnt have told you what most of the foods on the market even back then were like. MUCH experimenting later - and...yep...there will be things I've mucked up and there will be, say, 10% of stuff I dislike so much it gets thrown away.

That would be part of the virtue of cookery classes for adults - someone to encourage people/be prepared to take on learners with all levels of skill (or none) and those people having a chance to try out new foods without worrying about wasted money if they don't like them personally.

So - yep...I'd agree with all of the previous post apart from "money should be provided for ingredients" (in the context of children being taught in schools).

At adult classes though - then I think things should be on a free or "pay as you can afford" basis.

LameWolf

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

It does take a certain amount of self-confidence to start experimenting with trying out different foods (particularly if cooking them oneself). It does also take having enough food money to be able to think "Oh well - if I dont like it or I ruin it in the making = it doesnt matter that much that it will get wasted".

I've had to teach myself to cook personally (didnt learn a thing from my mother) and couldnt have told you what most of the foods on the market even back then were like. MUCH experimenting later - and...yep...there will be things I've mucked up and there will be, say, 10% of stuff I dislike so much it gets thrown away.

This resonates with me - my mother was such a dreadful cook, she could burn water! (Not literally, but you get my drift).
So what cooking skills I have are self-taught.
I also LOATHE cooking. I do cook from scratch, because my DH, bless him, likes the meals I make, and also helps out in the kitchen without being nagged.
But I confess, I am very wary of trying a new recipe, lest I muck it up and produce something inedible.

LameWolf

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

It does take a certain amount of self-confidence to start experimenting with trying out different foods (particularly if cooking them oneself). It does also take having enough food money to be able to think "Oh well - if I dont like it or I ruin it in the making = it doesnt matter that much that it will get wasted".

I've had to teach myself to cook personally (didnt learn a thing from my mother) and couldnt have told you what most of the foods on the market even back then were like. MUCH experimenting later - and...yep...there will be things I've mucked up and there will be, say, 10% of stuff I dislike so much it gets thrown away.

This resonates with me - my mother was such a dreadful cook, she could burn water! (Not literally, but you get my drift).
So what cooking skills I have are self-taught.
I also LOATHE cooking. I do cook from scratch, because my DH, bless him, likes the meals I make, and also helps out in the kitchen without being nagged.
But I confess, I am very wary of trying a new recipe, lest I muck it up and produce something inedible.
And I could no more cook a meal for guests than fly to the moon, because I simply don't have the confidence to do so.