World Environment Day 2013

[Dipali]

The World Environment Day celebration began in 1972 and has grown to become one of the main vehicles through which the United Nations stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and encourages political attention and action. It is also a day for people from all walks of life to come together to ensure a cleaner, greener and brighter outlook for themselves and future generations.The theme for this year’s World Environment Day celebration is Think.Eat.Save. Reduce Your Foodprint.

While our planet is struggling to sustain its 7 billion people, FAO estimates that a third of global food production is either wasted or lost. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), every year 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted. This is equivalent to the same amount produced in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, 1 in every 7 people in the world go to bed hungry and more than 20,000 children under the age of 5 die daily from hunger.  

Aiming to reduce this enormous imbalance in lifestyles and the resultant devastating effects on the environment, the theme for this year’s World Environment Day celebrations is Think. Eat. Save. Think. Eat. Save – encourages us to become more aware of the environmental impact of the food choices we make and empowers us to make informed decisions.  Think. Eat. Save is an anti-food waste and food loss campaign that encourages us to reduce our food print.

So here, I have made an attempt to gather some tips so we can adopt them instantly to go with the world to reduce food print by saving and diverting the flow of  food to in need person, save money and protect the environment:

1. Get the right recipe 

Every good cook has his/her own secret recipe which results in optimisation of ingredients and minimisation of wastage. A fixed recipe is one of the best ways to avoid wastage because you know the exact quantities. 

2. Cut it to size 

In some Asian countries, there is food wastage of as high as 15 kg per person every year, due to wrong peeling and cutting techniques. There's an art to how you chop and cut your ingredients to help reduce wastage. Right slicing of fruits and vegetables reduces chances of waste.  If a leafy veggie is used for garnishing, then the stems are used in the broth. 

3. Your bit to reduce wastage

While peeling veggies, fruits, take off only the skin. Cutting deep amounts to wastage. When we are cutting vegetables, like potatoes to make wedges (which comes in same sizes), we can use the uneven parts that kept aside, for mash potatoes. Unused fruit chunks can be used to make pulp, puree or juices.

4. Share of Restaurants

Restaurants should encourage customers to come back with the same container to carry their next takeaways. Rather than dumping unused food (vegetable and fruit peels), they can distribute it as fodder for livestock .

Offering smaller portions at restaurants- Small but simple actions by consumers and food retailers could dramatically cut the food lost or wasted.  

5. Feed people not landfill.

Many people think of food waste as a benign substance. It rots down in the landfill anyway, so no problem...Wrong! For food to compost properly, it needs light and air. In the landfill, it has neither. Instead, food devoid of light and air produces methane gas, which contributes to global warming. It is estimated that we throw away a third of the food we buy each week!

Through poor portion control or buying too much fresh food that goes off before we use it we create a lot of waste. So,

• Write a list! - Menu plans your meals for a week. Check the ingredients in your fridge and cupboards, then write a shopping list for just the extras you need.

• Stick to the list! - Take your list with you and stick to it when you're in the store. Don't be tempted by offers and don't shop when you're hungry — you'll come back with more than you need.

• Keep a healthy fridge- Check that the seals on your fridge are good and check the fridge temperature too. Food needs to be stored between 1 and 5 degrees Celsius for maximum freshness and longevity.

• A menu plan in hand- The better you menu plan, the better you eat, the less you waste, and when done right, the more you save on food. Come up with a system for menu planning that works for you, plan simple and frugal meals, and then we will generally save money and waste less food.

• Use up your leftovers- Instead of scraping leftovers into the bin, we can use them for tomorrow's ingredients. The best example is use of ripe Mango’s peels and seed- “Gotali” being consumed in Indian kitchen. We should develop more and more ideas for remaking leftovers.

• Rotate- When you buy new food from the store; bring all the older items in your cupboards and fridge to the front. Put the new food towards the back.

• Serve small amounts- Serve small amounts of food with the understanding that everybody can come back for more once they've cleared their plate. This is especially helpful for children, who rarely estimate how much they can eat at once. Any leftovers can be cooled, stored in the fridge and used another day or can be offered to needy person.

• Buy what you need- Buy loose fruits and vegetables instead of prepacked, then you can buy exactly the amount you need.

• Freeze! - If you only eat a small amount of bread, then freeze it when you get home and take out a few slices a couple of hours before you need them. Likewise, batch cook foods so that you have meals ready for those evenings when you are too tired to cook.

• Turn it into garden food- Some food waste is unavoidable, so we can set up a compost bin for fruit and vegetable peelings. The resulting product can be used on houseplants and in the garden.

Come with a list of new ideas on Think. Eat. Save. as a part of celebration of “World Environment Day, 2013”. 

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control the population is also considering point.

[shailendra kumar yadav]

nice suggestion!!!!!!!!

[kaushambi]

Really easy to understand for all...good

[Arpita Bhagat]

Hi, I've written something with a take on sustainability. 

If there is one thread that binds us all, it is our absolute dependence on environment. Though in our everyday affairs, barely ever do we realize, let alone introspect on our treatment towards this lifeline.

By the end of the last century, the understanding of Climate science and consequently, the anthropological impact on environment became a matter of hot debate. >>>Read more  http://www.theunknownpen.com/featured/our-stake-in-sustainability/

Thanks!

Arpita

[VENKATA SATYANARAYANA . L]

Excellent.

[Nity Nishant]

good one

[Dr. Jitin Rahul ''NATURE'']

good information about world environment day----5 june, 2013.

[Gomathi Nagarajan]

Your idea is good.